The Butterfly Effect
by Cold Soda
Summary: With the recent induction of the Graceful Assassin, the Organization can finally focus on the exploration of the famed Minakami area. They quickly learn that some things are better left untouched. - Arc I of Project Symmetry. Crossover with Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly -
1. Prologue

"_Only sadness remains when two things that must be together in order to complete a whole are pulled apart._" ~Makoto Shibata

* * *

><p>In the eyes of the locals, the Minakami area was not a place for sane men. When Saïx had pressed further, explanations varied: the land was unstable; the surrounding wildlife was uncharacteristically violent; the weather was unforgiving. The only thing these people seemed to agree on was the fact that many had left for the area and never returned. It all sounded ridiculously contrived, and the fact that their own source of information remained tight-lipped ever since he had been discovered in a distant village only added to the list of inconveniences faced by the Organization. Nonetheless, Saïx had prepared himself for the worst; it was the main reason why he had survived all that he had. When you expected fate to toss everything it had at you without remorse, unpleasant surprises were that much easier to face.<p>

Moments after he had stepped out of the corridor and onto solid ground, Saïx realized that he had come here ill-prepared. Even under his already thick clothes and heavy leather coat, the cold was positively mind-numbing. The wind passed straight through his gloves and bit into his skin. Snow covered the toes of his boots when he stood in one place for too long. The wind around him howled and echoed off of the surrounding circle of mountains, their snow-capped peaks obstructing the horizon. The sun, partially hidden and at its highest point, failed to provide any noticeable warmth.

Saïx pulled his coat tight, surveying his surroundings with a neutral expression as one of his companions appeared behind him. Their target- a forest- stood directly before them, almost entirely bare in the hold of winter. Off in the distance sat what he assumed to be the Minakami dam, a project that had been the talk of the surrounding populace. He pulled his hood over his head as the wind picked up, turning his back to the rolling gusts to face the others. Snowflakes had just begun to collect in the curves of his ears.

"Holy shit. I think my balls just jumped back into my body."

Saïx chose not to dignify that with an immediate response. He instead opted to put a hand over his mouth and nose. The cold grew a little more bearable.

"You should pull your hood up, Xigbar," the Diviner said through his fingers.

"Yeah, yeah. Yap, yap, yap." The Freeshooter replicated a talking mouth with his hand before doing just that. White clouds puffed from between his lips with every breath, looking every bit like blank word bubbles in an unfinished comic strip.

Marluxia was the last of the three to step out into the snow, landing soundlessly behind a half-buried log a few feet to Saïx's left. He pulled up his hood almost instantaneously.

"I don't get how you people can stand this!" Xigbar shouted in the Assassin's general direction. "I'm pretty sure my nipples could cut diamonds right now!" Marluxia gave him a blank look before reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a spotless handkerchief, yanking back his hood to tie it around his neck and pull it over his nose. Saïx expected it to be embroidered and was surprised to learn otherwise.

"Just be thankful that we weren't caught in the middle of an earthquake," Marluxia called over the howl of the wind, his voice muffled only slightly by the bleached white cloth hanging over his face. "Leave if you're going to complain." The Assassin stepped over the crooked log, crossing the uneven terrain with ease before joining them in their spot next to the frozen river, his coat billowing dramatically. His eyes flashed above the edge of the handkerchief as he turned to inspect his surroundings.

"Getting nostalgic yet, farmboy?"

Marluxia shot Xigbar a poisonous look before turning to pull back his coat's cuffs and tuck his shirtsleeves into his gloves.

"Now is hardly the time, Xigbar," Saïx muttered as he dusted frost from his shoulders. "I suspect you know where we are going, XI?"

"I have an idea," Marluxia said curtly, brushing snowflakes from his eyelashes.

"Lead the way, then," Xigbar said with a theatrical half-bow and another blank word bubble. The Assassin stepped into the forest without comment, the trees around him shuffling out of his path. Directing a final look over his shoulder at the mountains, Saïx followed the others into the cover of the trees.

* * *

><p>They were shielded from the worst of the wind in the forest, though the falling snow still proved to be something of a nuisance. With that in mind, Saïx supposed he could have had more to worry about. The fact that one of his companions could easily manipulate the majority of their obstructions made this place just a little less dreadful.<p>

"So how deep in _is_ this place?" Xigbar asked.

The Assassin sent a brief glance in their direction before returning his attention to several exposed roots. He had lowered the handkerchief, allowing it to dangle stiffly from his neck. Even in the cold, Marluxia seemed relatively comfortable.

"You'll be hard-pressed to find someone who knows." The last of the set of roots moved aside and the trio continued on. "The area is flooded with darkness." He turned his head and shot a not-quite smile, tinged with a dark sort of humor, over his shoulder. "Surely you've sensed it?"

"… What of the Heartless?" Saïx asked, ignoring the artificial politeness in the Assassin's response. A gust of wind appeared unexpectedly, and he tightened his coat. "I never saw so much as one. And judging by what I have heard, this forest should be flooded with them."

A few seconds passed before Marluxia answered. "I've only ever been on the edges of this forest."

"What's the matter? You scared?" Xigbar asked with a wide grin.

Marluxia paused, glaring. "Even if I _am_ surrounded by plants, to progress any further while alone would be exceptionally foolish."

"Superstitious lot, aren't ya?" Xigbar muttered.

Marluxia answered with a glare and continued on. A particularly troublesome cluster of withered branches drifted aside before they had the chance to catch the Assassin's hood. "I admit that I have yet to see a Heartless," he said quietly.

"… I'm not liking the fact that we haven't seen a bear," Xigbar said, pausing to yank the edges of his coat from a clinging shrub. "They're s'posed to be everywhere in these kinds of places."

"The forest is entirely devoid of wildlife," Marluxia said, raising his arms for emphasis. "It's like that year-round."

"With this kind of weather…" The Freeshooter trailed off, spitting onto the frozen forest floor.

"The locals seem to fear this place," Saïx said. "Even with their numerous superstitions taken into account, I gathered that this is not a place to enter blindly."

The Assassin sped up slightly and tightened his hood, making a noise that sounded somewhat like a snort. "Entering with caution would be for the best."

Xigbar grunted in response. No one spoke for a while after that.

* * *

><p>Over the course of the past several hours, the storm had steadily died out.<p>

Saïx stood stock-still some feet from the cliff's edge, his pointed ears twitching minutely as he cocked his head to the side. His feet were sore, blisters forming throbbing lines along his toes and around the curves of each ankle.

"… Are you quite done, yet?" Marluxia was ignored. Saïx closed his eyes, focusing on nothing but the sounds of the cluster of trailers and vehicles in the valley below, his hair dangling as it fell from his hood. He gritted his teeth as he struggled to hear over the combined assault of his companions' steady breathing and the mechanical noises of the machinery before them.

"… Eight," the berserker answered after several seconds of careful consideration. "Maybe nine." Saïx lifted his head and turned to face the others, absentmindedly flexing his fingers. They tingled as the feeling returned to them. "No more than a dozen."

"Well, goody," Xigbar said. "Let's go, then."

"Wait." Marluxia pushed off of the low-hanging tree branch he had coaxed down and landed gracefully on his feet. Saïx watched as the branch moved fluidly up to its rightful spot. "Let me speak with them on my own. I doubt that they would be willing to help foreigners." Xigbar snorted.

"You people, I swear. If they've got a problem with me, they can answer to my guns."

Marluxia did a rather admirable job of making his polite smile seem genuine. "I've reason to believe that I know the ways of these people better than you do, Xigbar. They won't take kindly to behavior of that sort."

"No, duh. But we have better things to do than wait around while you mess with the local hicks. No offense."

Marluxia's face was blank, though he managed to get his point across by rather childishly crossing his arms. "Believe me," he began, looking from Xigbar to Saïx and back again, "when I say that the people here are _extremely_ xenophobic. I was only allowed back into that village by the skin of my teeth." He chuckled lightly, gaze distant for a moment. "My hair was enough to raise caution; how do you think these people would react to _you_ two if you were seen?"

"Hmph. Little spitfire, aren't ya? I say we take our chances and charge."

"… Xigbar," Saïx began in a steady monotone, "we've come this far and found nothing, despite or perhaps because of the lingering darkness. If these are the same people that are building that dam, they must know quite a lot about this forest. In my experience, I was lucky to get as much information as I did out of the villagers; perhaps they will be more willing to speak with one of their own."

The Freeshooter said nothing, turning to stare out at the valley. He scratched at the back of his head for a moment, pulling several hairs from the band holding them back. "… Hurry up," he said finally, failing to turn away from the camp. "It's fucking cold."

Marluxia didn't need to be told twice. The Assassin moved forward, quickly and soundlessly descending the cliffs into the valley below.

"Keep your ears open," the Freeshooter said when Marluxia was several feet away, cracking his neck without severing his gaze from the shrinking form of the Nobody. "Mine can't handle much these days, y'know?"

Saïx said nothing. He watched as the Assassin landed at the base of the valley and made his way to the largest trailer, planted at the far end. Marluxia landed three echoing blows against the door, and a man- ant-like at this distance- poked his head out not long after. The two stood facing each another for nearly a minute, Marluxia with his back to his companions and the other man refusing to allow more of himself out into the cold. The Nobody's hands moved back and forth as he spoke, adding a theatrical flair to his words as was expected of him. Eventually, the man pulled the door back a scant few inches, allowing the Assassin to squeeze his way into the trailer. The door snapped shut. Only the distant rumbling of motors remained.

Xigbar chuckled loudly. "Pretty good, ain't he?"

"…" Saïx turned to look out at the distant mountains, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes. A gibbous moon was just barely visible in the gradually darkening sky.

* * *

><p>The remaining tip of the sun had turned the horizon a sickly shade of orange by the time either of them had spoken again.<p>

"He's been awful quiet, don't'cha think?"

A dead leaf flipped over the tip of Saïx's right boot before he responded, the icy breeze knocking several strands of his hair loose and shoving them into his face. "Perhaps." The Diviner pushed his hair back into place with a very slight frown, his foot shifting with the motion and producing a rather unappealing wet sound as it rubbed against the slush-coated earth. He turned just in time to see Xigbar leap from the high branch he had chosen as his perch, manipulating the surrounding gravity before he hit the ground. Saïx felt a slight push from that direction, stiffening before regaining his balance and stepping away from the tree he had been leaning against.

"What do you say we go check on him?"

Saïx nodded wordlessly, brushing a thin layer of frost and shredded dead leaves from his shoulders.

Xigbar grinned. "Race you down!" And just like that he was over the side of the cliff.

Saïx stood for a moment, his mouth a tight thin line as he peered over the edge. The Diviner shuddered slightly, turning to descend the cliff face before the vertigo could tighten its hold on him. What he felt was not quite dizziness, not quite nausea as he struggled to get a grip on the slick stone, sickeningly aware that gravity was not on his side; that he would not be able to drop into a corridor if he made so much as one tiny mistake. He forced himself to stare at his slightly-trembling hands as he carefully felt for solid indentions in the rock with his feet, wincing when his weight caused small chunks of the cliff to break off and fall to the ground. Further and further and further down…

His boots touched the valley floor sooner than expected. When he turned away from the wall, face-to-face with what he assumed to be an odd looking generator, Xigbar wasted no time in waiting for him to catch up. Saïx could hear the door of the trailer being pulled closed before he had even managed to catch sight of it.

The Diviner followed him, tugging the door open with a stiff sort of care and wincing when the shrieking hinges assaulted his sensitive ears. He stepped inside, shoving the door closed as warmth enveloped him and the howling winds quieted.

The interior of the trailer was certainly nothing special, though it was of a comfortable temperature. Fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead, their light casting a sickly hue on everything it touched. A table and loveseat were shoved into the corner to his left, an assortment of magazines and newspapers scattered across the former. To his right was a small bare table. Xigbar stood out as a black shape before it, turned away from Saïx as he spoke to the same man that Marluxia had conversed with earlier that day.

"Ah, yes. Your friend," the man said as he fiddled with his cuffs. Saïx inched forward, his footsteps muffled by threadbare carpeting. The man looked over at the Diviner, his scowl deepening, and continued. "All he wanted was a map of the construction area. He let me sketch out a basic one. Very polite, I'll add. And such strange hair."

"When did he leave?" Xigbar asked, crossing his arms.

The Diviner moved to lean against the wall as discreetly as possible, willing himself not to just fall asleep where he stood.

"Hmph." The man lifted an arm and inspected his wristwatch. "It's about thirty past seven, now. He left a few minutes before Matoh dropped by with the reports, so…" The man sniffed, staring into space for a moment. "I'd be willing to guess that he walked out a little more than an hour ago."

Xigbar straightened, his hands balling into fists and relaxing again within a moment. "Thanks, then."

The man nodded stiffly. "You can leave, now. This storm has thrown our schedule completely out of line, and I do not need any more distractions." And without another word he turned away, shambling off in the opposite direction. Xigbar spun around at roughly the same time and trudged through the door. Saïx followed, feeling as if his boots had been filled with cement.

The cold air woke him up almost immediately, and the little that was visible of the moon left the Diviner feeling refreshed.

"Well," Xigbar began as he clasped his hands behind his back and rolled on his heels, his smile cold in the shadows of his hood. "Looks like we've got ourselves a manhunt." He turned away and looked up at the forest, his silence falsely considerate. "You think the Berserkers can make their way through those?" Saïx turned to inspect the trees.

"It's too dense. They'll catch themselves on the branches."

"That's what I thought. Too loud, anyway. Same with the Snipers." Xigbar stared for a moment longer before pivoting on his heels and grabbing the Diviner's elbow. "Here we go, then."

"What are you-?" In one dreadful instant, their feet left the ground, and in another they were quite a ways to the edge of the cliff. Xigbar laughed obnoxiously when Saïx stiffened, forcing himself to look anywhere but down.

"Time to fly, princess!"

"Xigbar!"

"Relax. It's physically impossible for you to fall right now. Nothing's weighing you down. See?" The Freeshooter freed Saïx's elbow, laughing as the latter immediately latched back on. "Jeez. No heart to speak of and you've _still_ got that little problem. Vexen would have a field day with you."

"Xigbar." It took every bit of willpower he had not to snarl. He somehow managed as he clenched his jaw. "Just get us to the cliff."

"What's the magic wo-ord?" Saïx growled.

"_Please._" Xigbar snorted.

"Cold and emotionless my ass." With a knowing smile, he forced himself from Saïx's grip and took his time in adjusting his hood, laughing when the Diviner stiffened again. "Fine, fine. You do a guy a favor and he yells at you for it. What a world. I may just have to tattle on you." Xigbar grabbed his elbow and brought them to the cliff, dropping Saïx when they were some feet above its edge. The Diviner landed in a heap, glaring as the Freeshooter gently set his own two feet atop the snow with a crunch. "Just what happened to Isa to plant that so firmly in your brain?"

Saïx gnashed his teeth and plucked a twig out of a fold in his coat. "Lea. _Lea_ happened."

"Ah. Well, I'll ask Axel about it, sometime. Might be funny." Saïx clenched his jaw as he brushed dirty snow from his clothes.

Xigbar snapped his fingers just as Saïx finished dusting himself off. Seven Dusks appeared before them, standing in a line. "Alright," the Freeshooter said, "listen up. We need you to find Number XI. If y'do, stay quiet and send one back to us." He lifted a hand and pointed in the general direction of the rightmost Dusk. "You, you, and you- go that way. You, you, and you- that way." The groups shambled off in their respective directions, their odd gait and color standing out in the darkness.

Xigbar gestured to the remaining Dusk. "You- you're with team Alpha. C'mon." The Freeshooter turned and disappeared into the trees, Saïx following with the Dusk not far behind.

* * *

><p>The forest, Saïx came to discover, was considerably less unpleasant beneath the light of the moon, despite the drastically lower temperature. But even that failed to fully rejuvenate him after several hours of searching. Multiple times had they feared that they had lost the trail, and multiple times did the Dusk suddenly straighten, floating off in another direction as it sensed the darkness its eleventh master had left in his wake. Both the Diviner and the Freeshooter followed blindly, unsure of it all and still searching, this foreign land unforgiving in every possible way.<p>

"I'm going to kill him," Xigbar growled as he stumbled over another exposed root. "Xemnas is going to have to wait his damn turn. Shoot him in the knees and flay him alive. Maybe crush him. Piece by piece."

"I doubt that the Superior would appreciate that, Xigbar," Saïx muttered, senses thriving in the moon's presence despite his exhaustion.

"Ah, c'mon," Xigbar said, grinning. "I'm sure Vexen can pull something from the remaining paste."

"You'd have to give him reason to, first."

"Heh. Good point." Xigbar stepped over the trunk of a fallen sapling, cursing when one of the branches caught the hem of his coat and yanked him back. "Though I guess I could just sic Xemnas on him."

"Reason enough."

"Y'know," Xigbar said after several minutes of silence, "I've always wondered about your ears." He elaborated when he was answered with a blank stare. "I mean, did Isa have those? I can't remember."

"No."

"Thought so." They walked in silence for roughly half a minute before he decided to explain. "See, I came across this world where there are people born with ears like that all the time. No darkness required. I thought that maybe Isa-."

"No." Saïx fought to keep his balance as a powerful gust tore through the forest and rammed into his side. The moon had given way to dawn far too long ago.

The Dusk paused for a fraction of a second before turning abruptly to the right, its shadow stretching off to the side.

"Snappy, aren't ya? Geez. And you were so talkative earlier, too." He paused. "Well, for you, anyway." Xigbar turned to follow the Dusk, crossing the uneven forest floor without any sign of struggle. The Diviner supposed he would have felt envious, if he were capable. "Guess it was just the darkness. You got the eyes, t-."

At that exact moment Saïx held out his hand, gesturing for him to freeze. The berserker ripped off his hood, cocking his head to the side in what was quickly becoming his default stance for the night as he listened intently. The Dusk began to chirp incessantly. It went on until Xigbar kicked it viciously in the side, leaving it sprawled and confused on the ground.

_There._ Without a word Saïx pointed to his left, face blank. There was a distant rustling, very faint but unmistakable.

Muffled footsteps.

With a small smile, Xigbar summoned one of his guns, index finger ghosting across the handle as he tossed it back to rest on his shoulder. The older Nobody nodded wordlessly, moving forward and vanishing within the trees, hardly making a sound even when the other gun appeared in the hand at his side. The Dusk followed, twitching a bit more than usual.

Saïx took a path several feet to the right, focusing on nothing but the sounds of the surrounding forest. It grew conspicuously silent within moments. Even Xigbar became impossible to locate. Saïx paused, unsure of himself as he strained to listen for movement. A sinking feeling- not quite disappointment- settled in the pit of his stomach. _Surely I haven't lost the trail already…?_

That was when he heard the pained yell. It echoed off of the mountains, so close that Saïx couldn't help but wince. He darted forward the second the pain subsided, tearing through the trees without a second thought.

He saw Xigbar first, holding his hand palm-down in front of him, his face hidden in his hood. Marluxia kneeled on the ground some feet away, trembling.

"You bastard," Marluxia rasped, trying and failing to pull himself to his feet. "You _bastard!_" Xigbar said nothing, merely turned his hand. Marluxia grunted as he was forced to lay flat on his stomach by the gravity surrounding him, breathing strained as he groped blindly for some sort of leverage.

"Saïx! Perfect timing! This guy can't do much on a broken leg, and _I'm_ sure not carrying him!" Xigbar smiled over at the shaking Assassin. "No use trying to get away on _that_, buddy!"

"You bastard," Marluxia repeated, his voice now trembling just slightly.

Saïx walked over and shoved him with the heel of his boot, flipping him onto his back. The Assassin groaned, breathing heavily as he looked up at the two with a wrathful expression. The break was more obvious now, the right leg bent at an odd angle just below the knee, and judging by the way his pants fell against his leg, a splinter of bone had broken the skin. "You brought it on yourself," Saïx said tonelessly. "Such is the fate of a coward."

"You're a pretentious bastard, you know that?" Xigbar said to Saïx as he stepped closer to the Assassin. The Diviner gave him a brief glare before returning his attention to the Nobody before them.

"Get out of here," Marluxia spat, every word coated in poison.

With another flick of his hand, Xigbar pulled the Assassin to his knees, ripping a cry from his throat. The Freeshooter smiled and lowered himself to one knee, his joints popping loudly in response. With the slightest twitch of a finger, he forced the other Nobody's head up to meet his gaze.

"Sorry, kid, but we aren't leaving anytime soon. We've got ourselves a mission. Superior's orders and all that." Marluxia said nothing, his mouth frozen in an enraged snarl. Xigbar scoffed before continuing. "I know it's your first and all, but where I come from, we got this little thing called work ethic, and it shouldn't be all that foreign to you." He smiled wryly, remaining eye flashing. "Better start moving, no?"

* * *

><p>"Y'know, this place is kind of nice when we aren't being shoved off of cliffs by the wind or chasing after traitors. Way less trees now, too." Xigbar whistled, picking up a twig and dragging it behind him as he walked. "Anyone know any songs? Marluxia?" Xigbar turned his head, smiling. "Oh, I forgot, you're unconscious. How silly of me. Saïx?"<p>

"…"

"Okay, then. How 'bout…?" He brought a hand to his chin in a falsely considerate gesture, pursing his lips. "… I-Spy-With my little e-"

"Xigbar," Saïx growled. "You were quiet up until now. Keep it that way."

"Oh-ho-_ho!_" Xigbar laughed, wagging his finger over his shoulder with another exaggerated grin. "_That's_ not how you address your superior! I should write you up for that. And you _know_ how much I hate paperwork." Saïx clenched his hands before finally relenting. "That's better. Now kiss my shoes."

"What are we going to do with him when this is over?" Saïx muttered, fighting back a yawn.

"I 'unno. Maybe Xem'll turn him into a Dusk. I doubt he will, at least for now, but you never know." Xigbar paused to stretch his arms. "We'll load him up with potions, that's for sure. I guess I just don't know my own strength. Thanks for your help back there, by the way. I just _don't_ know what I'd do _without_ you. Kid nearly took my head off even after he was down." Saïx gritted his teeth, but remained silent.

"We're looking for a stone. A statue. It should have two figures, one with the head broken off. No more than twelve inches in height."

"You could have told me earlier, y'know," Xigbar said.

"I was told that it was found very deep in the forest- past another valley."

"'_I was told, I was told, I was told_.' Yap, yap, fucking yap. If you _knew_ where it was, we could've gotten this over with hours ago. Wouldn't have to have been chasing after chickenshit, here."

"The place is mostly uncharted. It can't be helped." Xigbar snorted before giving a dismissive wave.

"Go check on newbie. Maybe he's awake." Saïx stopped, turning to lift his hand. The Berserker Nobody halted immediately, frozen in its spot some feet behind them. The Diviner moved forward to inspect the limp form in its arms.

The majority of Marluxia's face was hidden in the shadows of his hood, but it was apparent that his eyes were closed; his breathing steady, but shallow. "Still unconscious," Saïx called over his shoulder. Xigbar nodded and turned to stretch his legs.

"Goody, goody. Break time, then. More than two minutes and I'll kick your ass."

"Noted."

"You're no fun. Vexen's got just as big a stick up his ass as you, but at least he reacts most of the time." Saïx ignored him, seating himself on a boulder with a small sigh. "So what now?" The Diviner clenched his jaw.

"Did you read _anything_ in my report before we came out here?"

"I got tired of that stuff a _long_ time ago. 'Sides, I've got better things to do." Xigbar noisily cracked his knuckles before leaning back against a tree. "So. Minakami Village. How long's it been like this?"

"I thought you said that you didn't read the report?" Saïx muttered, arching a brow as he compulsively picked at the creases in his gloves.

"One or two words doesn't count."

"I'm not entirely sure why," Saïx began as he crossed his arms, "but I'm beginning to suspect that you're only asking to irritate me further."

"You can't feel irritation, smart guy," Xigbar said as he busied himself with a stray thread on his coat.

"Miracles can happen."

"All right, smartass, I get it. Xiggy shut up, now." Saïx closed his eyes before pulling himself into a slouch.

"A miracle all in itself."

"You ever wonder what it's like to be dangled fifty feet from the ground by your hair? I can make it happen, all just for you."

The Diviner suppressed another yawn. "How considerate."

"Yeah, well how 'bout I- _Whoa!_"

Saïx jumped up immediately, summoning his claymore in a flash of white light just as a gun appeared in Xigbar's hand. "_Look out!_"

The Diviner didn't even get the small mercy of being able to react. He heard the crash, the gunshot, but it was distant and muddled. All he knew was that the shot had temporarily stolen his hearing, that everything was ringing and that _there was so much pain._ He did not hear his spine snap so much as he felt it do so. Then the world went gray for a while.

* * *

><p>When he came to, he found himself several feet away from where he had been standing, flat on his back and half-buried in several inches of snow and mud<em>.<em> A flare of agony shot up his spine, the pain alone rendering him motionless, his mouth half-open in a silent scream. There were faint gunshots, and sounds that seemed to shake the earth itself, each tremor sending fresh waves of pain across his body. Saïx closed his eyes and lost himself in the fog.

* * *

><p>"Wake up." A distant voice, quiet but firm, with the slightest tinge of amusement. Saïx was vaguely aware of a cold gloved hand patting his face. "I said wake up." Slightly irritated, now.<p>

Saïx forced his eyes open, his vision swimming. He saw a gray blob amidst the darkness, and the rest of the world slowly came into focus. Marluxia stared down at him with a malicious smirk, the majority of his face hidden within the shadows of his hood. "That's better." The Diviner's vision blurred, and he closed his eyes. He could make out distant gunshots, the occasional curse, but that faded with time.

The Assassin sat directly to his left, his broken leg laid out before him.

"Not much time, now," Marluxia said under his breath. He abruptly placed a hand on either side of the berserker's shoulders and lowered his head- and for a brief, bizarre moment, Saïx thought that the man was going to kiss him. Still smiling, Marluxia bent down, his breath ghosting across the Diviner's neck. He chuckled lightly, his words breathy and slightly pained as he whispered into his ear. "You brought it on yourself." Saïx glared despite himself, pulling his lips back in a snarl. Marluxia chuckled regally, moving out of his line of vision with less grace than he was usually associated with. In an instant he was standing over the Diviner, supporting himself with his scythe as the rising sun bathed him in an eerie glow. "We never should have come here," the Assassin mumbled, frowning as he gazed off into the distance. "We have no right."

Saïx's retort was cut off when Marluxia pressed the butt of his scythe against the Diviner's abdomen, his air nonchalant. A belt of agony cinched itself around the berserker's middle with such abruptness that he couldn't help but scream, and he realized with distant horror that everything below that belt was completely numb. He couldn't feel a thing at all.

"Although," Marluxia began, his gaze cold, "I doubt that such a thing would stop any of you." He paused, lifting the scythe and stepping back. Saïx choked back a gasp as the belt slowly began to fade. "No matter." He stepped away- limping slightly, Saïx was pleased to notice- holding his hand out and running it across the trunk of a large tree. In a brief moment of lucidity, Saïx wondered how the Assassin could walk at all. Marluxia turned to face him, everything above his lips covered in shadow. "I suppose certain… precautions must be taken." He did not smile this time, and Saïx found that surprisingly disconcerting. Marluxia took a step away from the tree and held out his hand. "Goodbye," he said matter-of-factly, and snapped his fingers.

For a moment, Saïx wasn't sure how to react. He felt the earth shift beneath him, heard a deafening crack. When he realized that the tree was not only falling, but that he was directly in its path, he felt only a twinge of panic. He could only focus on Marluxia, watching as the man stepped deeper into the forest and suddenly broke into a sprint, his limp nonexistent as he disappeared into the darkness.

Saïx was hurtled back into reality as the trunk crashed against him, ripping the breath from him. It fell diagonally across his chest, breaking several ribs. His breathing was ragged, watery; his lungs had been punctured. Warmth flowed from a hole in his chest. The fact that he was lying in a ditch to begin with was the only thing that kept him from being crushed completely.

Saïx blinked, his vision blurring as tears filled his eyes and he wondered how he could still possibly be in one piece. When he opened them again, his pulse spiked. Xigbar was suddenly there, face bloody and bruised and features sharp. With a flick of his hand, he pulled the tree off of the Diviner.

"_Open your mouth!_" the Freeshooter bellowed. Before Saïx had the chance, Xigbar was pulling his chin down, shoving the lip of a bottle past his lips and forcing a potion down his throat. Saïx choked as blood filled his mouth and bubbled over his lips, leaking down his chin, across Xigbar's hand, and onto his neck. The Freeshooter's expression contorted with mild disgust as he let out a half-hearted _gross._

It seemed that an eternity had passed before the potion began to take effect. In some distant corner of his mind, Saïx knew that one potion was not enough, that he was going to fade very soon if left alone. Xigbar rose to his full height and gave a piercing whistle. The Diviner was suddenly lifted from the ground by a group of Sniper Nobodies, screaming as his back shifted. The Freeshooter didn't react. "Get to where you can teleport and get him out of here." They made eye contact. Xigbar forced a smirk.

"Say hi to the guys at HQ for me." The Freeshooter sprinted off in pursuit of Marluxia, pulling out a gun just before the Snipers began flying.

Saïx felt his stomach sink as he was carried over the edge of the cliff, descending into the valley below. It was bitterly cold, and despite everything, he could still feel the bite of the wind through his pain. He faded in and out of consciousness, and before he knew it he was in a considerably warmer climate.

The scent of several different foods- porridge, oatmeal, fruit- stuck out, and the surface he was lying against was horribly uneven. He heard distant shouting, scuffling, cursing. Several different voices. Something hit the floor and shattered into many pieces. Liquid sloshed around in a container close to his left ear. Someone was ripping his coat open and pulling up his shirt.

"Can you hear me? _Can you hear me_, Saïx?"

"Oh, man! Oh, _man!_ What the _hell?_"

An elixir was forced between his lips, one hand holding the bottle while another held his mouth open. A massive third hand was pinning his right arm down.

Vexen jerked back when the Diviner opened his eyes, spilling a bit of the elixir in the process. "He's awake!" the Academic shouted over his shoulder. The Diviner heard rapid footsteps, and in an instant Zexion was at Vexen's side, peering down at him far more clinically than he would have liked. "Fetch more elixir," Vexen ordered, and in a flash the Schemer was gone.

"Try not to speak," another voice rumbled. Lexaeus looked down at him from his right, carefully monitoring the pulse in his wrist. "Your lungs are damaged."

"Well no shit!" Axel appeared suddenly, his face upside down. "He's just hacking up blood for shits and giggles!" Axel looked down at him, his expression immediately becoming sincere. "Isa, you okay?" Saïx supposed that the concern would be touching in any other situation, but right now, he wanted as few people in his face as possible.

"Axel, _get out of the way!_" Vexen shouted, grabbing him by his hair and shoving him away unceremoniously. As much as Saïx appreciated it, the sudden shout made him flinch, causing him to cry out in pain.

"Demyx," Lexaeus called, "he's bleeding heavily. Come here and control the blood flow as best you can."

"_What?_" The Nocturne rushed over, his eyes wide as he came to a halt next to the Silent Hero. "W-wait! What if I mess up? What if I give him a clot?"

"Just do what you can while we wait for the elixir to take effect," Lexaeus said, his voice calm but firm. "Applying pressure to the wound may damage his lungs further. He needs every bit of help he can get right now."

"… Oh, _man!_" The Silent Hero stepped aside and Demyx took his place. The Nocturne's mouth hung open, his eyes wide with horror as he stared down at the Diviner's chest. "Are- are those his _rib-?_"

"Just _do it_, IX!" Vexen screeched as he pulled the cork off another elixir. That seemed to shake the younger Nobody out of his stupor. Demyx shot forward, placing his hand not far from where Saïx's heart once was.

"Okay. Okay. I can do this. _I can do this,_" he chanted to himself, nodding occasionally as he licked his lips. Luxord appeared behind the Nocturne, looking over the wound with an apathetic eye.

"I doubt you're doing much for Saïx's confidence, Demyx," he muttered dryly, arching a brow. Demyx turned and shot him a _look_, and- much to Saïx's muted surprise- Luxord slunk back. The Nocturne turned back to face him, his nervousness returning in an instant.

"Okay," he rasped. "_Okay._"

The remaining members of the Organization- excluding Xemnas, strangely enough- slowly formed a circle around Saïx, staring down at him with varying amounts of bemusement. Vexen let his irritation be known with his own _look_, but it went unnoticed, or ignored. He quickly resorted to shouting. "You all are _in my way!_"

"_Move_," Lexaeus rumbled, and in an instant Saïx was left alone with IV, V, and IX, the others standing on the opposite side of the room and mumbling amongst themselves. The Silent Hero maneuvered around Demyx, bending a bit to check the Diviner's pulse. "It's stabilizing," he said after several seconds.

Feeling his lungs rebuild themselves was rather… strange. The worst of the sharp pains in his chest was beginning to fade away as he began to breathe more easily. Even so, blood continued to leak from his mouth, and in some corner of his mind he supposed that all of it had to go somewhere.

"Give me another elixir, Zexion," Vexen muttered, noticeably calmer. Saïx heard the rushing noise of a corridor being opened just as he closed his eyes, his fatigue catching up with him as the pain began to slowly fade away.

"What has happened?" The voice was low, authoritarian. Saïx opened his eyes to see Xemnas standing where Axel had been moments prior, frowning slightly as he bent down to inspect his face, his hair brushing against the Diviner's forehead and nose. A hush fell over the Nobodies at the other end of the room. Vexen and Demyx flinched slightly before returning to their work, the former closing his eyes and muttering something unintelligible to himself. Lexaeus stood, unflinching.

"We're not certain, Superior. Some Snipers decided to drop him here. I suspect that his spine is broken."

Xemnas said nothing, making brief eye contact with Saïx before rising to his full height and walking around Vexen, coming to a stop at the Diviner's feet. "Saïx," he began, reaching down by the berserker's foot and pulling up a small metal spoon, "tell me if you can feel this." He brought the spoon down several times, pressing its handle against the Diviner's calf every few seconds. The rest of the Organization slowly shuffled up behind him, peering over his shoulders with varying amounts of confusion.

"No," Saïx rasped, those cold, soulless yellow eyes the last thing he saw before he abruptly lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 1

The future Number XI of the Organization had been discovered in a Chinese teahouse, of all places, and from the outset he had established himself as a relatively calm- if underhanded- individual. The moment he had sensed another of his kind in Xigbar and Xaldin, he had decided to stay still and quietly sip his drink, shielding his eyes beneath a large brown scarf he had wrapped around his hair. He waited until the split second they had turned their backs on him, and- in one quick and fluid motion- he rose from his seat and disappeared into the crowd.

When II and III burst into his lab almost a day later with an unconscious Nobody slung over the latter's shoulder, Vexen wasn't sure what to think. The fact that all three were tracking blood and soil and powers knew what else across his pristine floor brought up memories of irritation, of anger, but he still wasn't quite sure how to respond when they slammed the new Nobody down on a table and ordered him to patch the man up with potions and bandages. The pink hair was certainly different, as was the fact that he smelled of fire and was covered in soot. That he had managed to fend off the Freeshooter and the Lancer as long as he had was impressive in itself- but to see them bleeding, not just bruised, but _bleeding_- well, Vexen was beside himself, even after seeing the sizeable hole in the man's gut where he had been run through with a lance.

It was really quite a pity that the new Nobody was an arrogant ingrate that had decided to attack him the moment he had regained consciousness, continuing to scream nonsense even after he was shoved to the floor with most of his body encased in solid ice. Quite a pity, indeed.

Still, that strength was enough to catch Xemnas's interest. Within a few hours the man had been inducted into the Organization as the Graceful Assassin- a title that Vexen couldn't help but scoff at. There was nothing graceful or assassin-like about that attack. The man was fueled only by blind rage- if you could call it that- shrieking like an animal as he lashed out at the one person that was trying to put him back together. To add insult to injury, Vexen was forced to clean up his lab on his own, discovering rotting chunks of vegetation in the strangest of places for days afterward.

Not that he was bitter about it.

Even then, to the Organization as a whole, Marluxia's discovery could not have come at a better time. With the recent discovery of the Minakami area and the darkness residing there, the founding six couldn't help but feel curious. Xigbar was the most vocal about it, all but charging into the mountains mere hours after Saïx had informed the others of what he had found on what was originally a simple scouting mission in the Land of the Rising Sun. The Diviner spoke of the legends of the long-lost Minakami Village, of how the weather would change at random and earthquakes would shake the land, of the dozens of people that would disappear into the forest without a trace because of unruly spirits. Vexen always scoffed at the last bit, but couldn't help but feel a tad intrigued.

Saïx claimed that he had _tried_ to enter the forest on his own- earning him a condescending little laugh from Marluxia weeks later, which, Vexen was loath to admit, did seem rather justified- but had found himself lost rather quickly. He had said that he felt as if the forest was changing when his back was turned, forcing him into a maze that only hours later did he realize he could not teleport out of.

Needless to say, when the Diviner arrived at the castle four days later, covered in filth with twigs sticking out of his hair and tears in his coat, he wasn't too fond of the place.

They had needed a guide; someone familiar with the area, the people and culture.

Enter Marluxia, the arrogant little twit. They had managed to force a bit of his history out of him after some time, much to the Assassin's silent- but no less obvious- annoyance. He was a farmboy-Vexen had to choke back laughter at this point when the story was repeated to him, even if his rational side deduced that it explained the scythe- born and raised in the Land of the Rising Sun, and had worked on the same farm for nearly twenty years. He had come to the Land of Dragons to help some relatives, and had lost his heart along the way. For the past five years, he had been hopping from city to city, forced to conceal his new hair color from the locals.

From the start, the original six had been poking holes in his story. If he was a dirt-poor farmer for most of his life, how could he have had the time and resources to learn to read and write? How could a dirt-poor farmer secure himself a Gummi Ship to travel to another world, close as those two worlds may be? Marluxia took it all with a smirk, keeping his lips sealed and his eyes cold.

No matter. Every one of them had secrets of their own, and he was the guide they had been searching for. He had traveled in the mountains. He knew of the culture, of the superstitions. He was perfect.

At least, they had thought so, up until Saïx had been dropped onto the breakfast table one morning, bleeding profusely and struggling to breathe with his spine broken in two.

Really, Vexen wasn't sure what to think.

* * *

><p>"It has been five days, Superior." Zexion's voice echoed off of the walls of Where Nothing Gathers, his usual smug tone conspicuously absent. "I have reason to doubt that they are coming back on their own."<p>

Vexen was less than pleased to be pulled from his lab for a meeting, much less over such trivial matters. He could care less about what happened to Marluxia, and Xigbar always took more time than necessary when he went out on a field mission, common sense be damned. "Perhaps _you_ would like to go, VI," Vexen said, just barely managing to bite back a snarl. "_Some_ of us have more important matters to attend to."

"Enough." Xemnas stared down at him with a slight frown, and the Academic suddenly discovered his right hand to be a thing of great interest. "Number XI claimed that this would not take more than a couple of days. We have not heard from so much as a Dusk for far longer."

"Not trying to cause a commotion, Superior, but I hardly believe that XI's word has any merit at this point." Luxord sat some feet away, absentmindedly flipping through a deck of cards. "No doubt Saïx has reason to agree."

"Even so, Xigbar would not take this long to find him."

"Indeed…" The Diviner wasn't entirely present, closing his eyes and drifting off every now and then. Seeing him in a back brace was beyond bizarre. The healing process would take a while, even with potions and elixirs, but he would be able to walk again. "I'm certain now that he was leading us in circles. I've run it over several times in my head; what I saw of the forest when we first entered was not nearly large enough to take that long to explore. At first I thought it to be an illusion created by the darkness, but…" He trailed off, gingerly lifting a hand to rub at his forehead.

"I suspect that he first went into the forest before construction of the dam began. The worker that we conversed with claimed that he had asked for a map of the construction site not long before he ran off. After I was attacked-" Saïx paused, "- he made sure that I knew of his presence. When I last saw him, he was running into the trees without a second thought. He _knew_ where he was going."

"'Running?'" Xaldin sat with his arms crossed and his face blank, but Vexen recognized a gleam in his eyes that was not uncommon to see on Dilan long ago. "I believe you told us that Xigbar broke his leg when he found him. And knowing Xigbar as well as I do, I can guarantee that it was not a simple fracture."

Saïx sat, quiet for a moment. "When I awoke, Marluxia was sitting on the ground with his legs laid out before him. In seconds he was standing again, leaning against his scythe and walking with a limp. And not a minute later he was able to break into a run. Unless he stole one from Xigbar- which I highly doubt- he never even had so much as a potion."

The room grew silent.

"I don't know what Marluxia is," Saïx mumbled after some time, "but it is nothing… normal."

"We're hardly ones to talk," Luxord muttered dryly, pulling a card from the deck and allowing it to disappear into his sleeve.

"Nonetheless," Lexaeus said, his voice firm, "he is a traitor on the run from the Organization, and has brought harm to at least two of our members. He must be brought to justice."

"What I don't get is how he managed to attack you in the first place," Demyx chimed in, swinging his legs absentmindedly. "I mean, he still had a broken leg at that point, right? Sure, he's got to outweigh you by like, what, 30 pounds? 50? And you _were_ turned away from him, but… Didn't you say that he knocked you some feet away?"

Vexen pondered it for some time, and when an idea came to him amidst the heavy silence several seconds later, his stomach sank.

"Did anyone ever consider that it was not _Marluxia_ that attacked him, but the _Berserker?_"

"Impossible." Saïx reacted immediately. "The Berserkers know better than to turn on their master. Allof the lesser Nobodies do. The _Dusks_ never attacked."

"… From what I've gathered," Lexaeus said, "the Berserker was with you in the forest for far longer than the Dusks. Perhaps that had some kind of effect?"

"Or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that you were closer to the source of darkness when it attacked?" Zexion wondered aloud, bringing his fingers to his lips in a gesture of careful consideration. "The darkness in the area seems to be rather… unpredictable."

Saïx said nothing.

"… Well… It kinda makes sense." Demyx was careful with his words, looking over at the Diviner as if he would fly across the room and attack him if he said anything disagreeable. "I mean, it was there, and it's strong enough to break your back and send you flying through the air with one swing, and-"

"Stop that, Demyx." Axel spoke up for the first time after spending the majority of the meeting staring into his lap. "You're freakin' me out."

"Whaddaya talking about?"

"Using logic. It's just _weird_."

"_Hey,_ I'm-!"

"Silence." Xemnas stared down at the others from what was, by all accounts, his throne. "If such a thing is true, we cannot afford the risk. We will not summon any of the lesser Nobodies during our time in the mountains." Vexen scoffed inwardly at the _we_- _Xemnas_ never went out on missions- but kept his mouth shut.

"Great," Axel muttered, crossing his arms. "There's earthquakes and schizoid weather, the _trees_ are screwing with us, we can't teleport out, and now we can't call for back up. Fantastic. Just fantastic."

"Enough, VIII." Xemnas straightened, his face blank. "Our Number XI has turned his back on us and our endeavor. He must be made to understand that ours is the only way, that he has doomed himself to a hollow existence through his cowardice. Only through Kingdom Hearts will he ever receive the chance to reclaim completion." He turned his head to face the Silent Hero. "A shepherd is needed to guide our lost lamb back to the flock. Lexaeus, you and Vexen shall return him to us. I trust your elements will aid you in the environment. Gather what you need and set out immediately." Vexen grit his teeth and suppressed a groan.

"Of course, Superior," Lexaeus said, and made a move to teleport out.

"Wait," Axel said suddenly. "I want to go." The Academic knew that grinding his teeth was a horrible thing to do, and found himself doing so despite that.

The Superior merely arched a brow. "Oh?"

"He _dropped a tree on Saïx_. There's _no way_ I'm letting him get away with _that_."

The Diviner sighed from across the room, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. "_Axel_. _Don't._"

"… The three of you shall leave immediately."

Saïx crossed his arms awkwardly, clenching his jaw and sending a death glare at his knees.

"You got it, boss," Axel said with a devilish grin, giving a cheesy salute before quickly teleporting out. Lexaeus followed.

"… Vexen, do you have something you would like to say?"

Vexen lifted his head, but couldn't manage to look Xemnas in the eyes. "Of course not, my Superior."

"Very well, then. Go."

He didn't need to be told again.

* * *

><p>"This… isn't what I was expecting, honestly," Axel murmured after a period of stunned silence.<p>

Vexen concurred, but it wasn't like he was going to let the bastard know.

The mountains stretched out before them for miles, the trees varying shades of green and dusted with powdery snow, the colors standing out amidst the light blue hue of the mountains. A narrow stream babbled not far from their feet, flowing down from the mountains and through the forest, going down into the distant villages several hundred feet below. The dirt they were standing on was slightly damp with a thin layer of melting snow, crunching beneath their feet with each step. It was cold- not cold enough for Vexen to notice, but he was able to see his breath. Their coats swayed in a gentle breeze.

… Even had _hated_ forests.

Vexen fiddled with the strap on his shoulder, feeling absolutely ridiculous with a backpack on. Majestic as it was, (_Appearances can be deceiving_, he thought immediately,) he wasn't exactly looking forward to traversing through this place, much less for a traitorous neophyte and a man he _knew_ could take care of himself. There wasn't an animal in sight, not so much as an insect, and despite being mid-afternoon with hardly a cloud in the sky, the sun didn't do much when it came to lighting the way.

"Come on," Lexaeus said, and stepped toward the forest. Axel followed with Vexen a few steps behind, bickering to himself as he stumbled over a stone.

It wasn't much better among the trees. Despite the cold, the forest stunk of sap and decay. Vexen knew that Zexion would be complaining of the smell were he with them. There were exposed roots and fallen trees everywhere, and it seemed that they could hardly take a step without hearing the sharp snap of a cracking twig. Lexaeus pressed on without a word, and Vexen was thankful for- if a bit surprised by- Axel's silence. The Flurry of Dancing Flames examined the forest with a curious eye, reaching out to touch the trees from time to time. As annoying as it was, it was better than hearing him talk.

"Watch your step," Lexaeus called over his shoulder when the soil became noticeably gritty. "The earth is rather brittle." As luck would have it, the earth beneath Vexen's right foot caved almost immediately, and in an instant he was buried to the knee. Cursing, he ripped his leg out of the hole, kicking up dust and sneezing.

"Hurt your back, gramps?" Vexen glared over at Axel only to have his retort cut off by another sneeze.

"There will be none of that, Axel," Lexaeus said. "Are you alright, Vexen?"

"I'm _fine,_ thank you." The Silent Hero nodded before continuing on. Axel followed, snickering.

Oh, yes. Marluxia was going to _pay_ for putting him through this.

* * *

><p>"Sounds like water," Axel muttered roughly an hour later.<p>

"Then it probably is," Vexen snapped.

"Quiet, both of you."

They stepped out of the trees only to be met by a river, at least fifteen feet from bank to bank, its current fairly strong. Vexen couldn't help but groan, wondering to himself how in the many worlds Saïx could stand _four days_ of this, much less come _back _several weeks later. He sat on a conveniently placed boulder, stretching his legs as he picked leaves out of his hair. Lexaeus stared at the water, knitting his brow in consideration. No doubt he was feeling for the riverbed through the earth beneath his feet.

"I can't see the bottom," Axel announced, crouching at the riverside. He pulled off his glove and stuck his hand in the water, immediately retracting, his hand hissing with steam. "'S cold too. My face is going numb just looking at it.

"I might be able to freeze a way across," Vexen mumbled, not speaking to anyone in particular, "but in all likelihood you two would slip off and be carried away. Besides, the running water would melt the path rather quickly. Maintaining it would be a challenge."

The Academic hadn't realized that Lexaeus had left them until after he had stepped out from the trees, carrying a thin stick that was longer than he was tall. The Silent Hero came up to the river without a word, lowering the stick into the water. Vexen groaned again when it was completely submerged, trembling in the Silent Hero's powerful grasp with no solid ground to stabilize it.

"… Move over, Axel," Lexaeus said. The Flurry of Dancing Flames did so, smirking to himself as he plucked up a dead leaf and reduced it to ashes in his palm. Simpleton.

The ground beneath them began to shake. Vexen and Axel jerked back, the former jumping to his feet in preparation for what had to have been a minor earthquake. They reflexively summoned their weapons, looking around frantically as the leaves were shaken from the trees and the river began to splash wildly.

It ceased abruptly. A strip of stone stretched across the river roughly an inch below the surface. Lexaeus turned to face them with his usual deadpan expression. "Be careful. The current has weakened, but it may still disrupt your balance." Without waiting for a response, the Silent Hero stepped onto the makeshift bridge.

"… Well way to make me feel like a _fucking idiot!_" Axel dismissed his chakrams with a scowl, stomping after the earth elemental. Vexen sent his shield back into the darkness and huffed, walking forward and stepping warily onto the slick stone with a light splash.

"You could've at least given us a warning, Lexaeus."

"Watch your step," the Silent Hero called over the rushing water, seeming to ignore him. The Academic scoffed, but continued on, dropping his attention to his feet and raising his arms slightly for balance.

The trio made slow progress, but it _was_ progress. Vexen regretted that he hadn't thought to choose a shorter coat, frowning as the hem trailed behind him and dragged in the water. The stone was smooth, but rose at an odd angle, and the Academic had nearly fallen off twice, though he was rather pleased to see that Axel had lost his balance once already.

They were about three-quarters of the way there when Vexen- having been focusing intently on the positioning of his feet- nearly bumped into Axel. Lexaeus had come to an abrupt halt and was staring fixedly at the river, his body tense.

"What's the hold-up?" Axel exclaimed, his irritation obvious as he looked down at the near-freezing water running over his feet and back. "Lexaeus, hey!"

The Silent Hero clenched his hands at his sides. "… There's something in the water."

Axel scoffed. "So? It's probably ju-"

Vexen yelped as something shot out of the water mere inches from his right foot, losing his footing and tumbling backwards. His head hit the bridge with a sharp crack, staining the rock with blood just before his body rolled over the side and plummeted into the river.

* * *

><p>Lexaeus reacted almost instantaneously, flinging his pack onto the riverbank and diving in after the Academic.<p>

Axel didn't have time to react, didn't have much time to do anything, really. He yelped as a tiny, gray-skinned hand shot out of the river and wrapped around his ankle, icy grip powerful enough to bruise. A head broke the water's surface and a small child peered up at him, her long black hair flowing in tendrils and her clothes a sopping mess. "I'm _cold,_" she whispered, her breath coming out in white clouds. "It's _scary._"

He didn't think. In an instant the child's hair was on fire. She released a piercing shriek and shot back, dragging him with her as she began to sob hysterically. "Daddy! _Daddy! Lemme go! LEMME GO!_"

"Get _away!_" Axel gave a vicious kick as he was pulled into the icy water, feeling her small nose give way beneath his boot with a crunch as he clung to the bridge. She screamed, sobbing harder as she finally let go. Axel pulled himself onto the bridge and scrambled to his feet, sprinting across without a second thought. He heard her sobbing behind him, smelled the unmistakable scent of burning hair and flesh, but didn't dare turn back.

He failed to relax when he finally reached the shore. Axel twisted on his heels and pulled out his chakrams, immediately going into a battle stance when he faced the river.

The girl was gone.

Axel blinked, lowering his chakrams. His eyes darted across the surface, not finding so much as a slight disturbance in the current. Her sobbing was very audible, very clear, but he couldn't see a thing. The burning smell was still there; he could still sense fire.

The Flurry of Dancing Flames pulled a 180 and raised his chakrams. He'd seen enough horror movies to know this shit: Hero sighs, relieved to be rid of the monster, only to turn and see it standing _right there_ and have it eat his face.

No one there.

"_Daddy…_" Axel jerked back to face the water. The voice hadn't come from the river. No- it seemed to be all around him, just quiet enough for him to begin to doubt his hearing. No- no way in _hell_ was he imagining it. It was crystal clear, and immediately put him on edge.

The current was quickly slowing. Axel blinked, staring out at the water as it sluggishly came to a stop.

"… What the hell?" he muttered, hesitant to dismiss his chakrams. Lea hadn't been the best student, constantly cheating off of Isa, but he knew enough to realize that gravity _did not work this way_. And wasn't there something about something called momentum?

Who the hell cared?

The river was still, but the atmosphere was far from peaceful. He sensed… _something_. And the silent stillness only made him realize that there wasn't so much as a bird or a cricket (_does this world even _have _birds or crickets?) _in the forest. Not even a slight breeze. Eerie didn't even _begin_ to describe it.

Axel took a cautious step toward the water, staring at his undamaged reflection, fully expecting something to pop out at him. His footsteps were surprisingly loud amidst the stillness, bouncing off of the trees and jumping back to him. The water was murkier than before, greenish-brown clouds rising up from the bottom and staining the surface. He swallowed a lump in his throat when he saw a very small but very visible splash of scarlet amidst the filth.

There was no sign of Lexaeus or Vexen. Axel felt a bit of dread settle in the pit of his stomach- not that he cared about their lives or anything, _hell_ no, there was just no way he was going to do this alone if the place kept pulling _this_ kind of shit on him. He could run fast- faster than the other two, that was for sure. Let the monsters feast on them and leave him be.

_Oh, sorry, Superior. You see, there was this little girl. She nearly drowned me and I think she killed the other- don't you _dare_ fucking laugh, Luxord. I swear to Kingdom Hearts I'll gut you if you don't shut your fucking mouth. I'm serious. She was _strong_. Nearly broke my ankle trying to pull me down._

Yeah. Let him try _that_ on Mr. High and Mighty and watch it go down. He'd be the laughingstock of the Organization.

Axel jumped as he heard a splash. He looked around for several seconds before finally seeing a ripple on the other side of the bridge. A hand broke the surface, grasping at the shore.

A gloved hand.

Axel ran over and grabbed the hand, yanking back with a grunt. It had to be Lexaeus- the hand was far too big to be Vexen's. There was no way he would be able to carry the Silent Hero, much less help him up, but hey- better to do this and get knocked on his ass than to face the wrath of a half-drowned giant after failing to help at all.

Lexaeus slowly pulled himself out of the water, looking every bit like a drowned bear as he coughed up mouthfuls of the stuff with his hair plastered to his forehead and eyes. Vexen was draped over his shoulder, barely moving. It took a lot of effort on both sides, but the Silent Hero managed to reach the shore, flipping the Academic onto his back and turning away to make several watery gagging noises.

"Is he breathing okay?" Axel asked, not terribly concerned. Better to have one than none at all.

Lexaeus didn't respond, continuing to hack up more of the filth. Axel sighed, turning to face the scientist.

"Hey." Axel reached out to tap his face, knitting his brows when there was no response. He knew the basics of CPR, but he would sooner swallow powdered glass than use it on _Vexen_. "Hey. Wake up, Mr. Science."

He tapped his face again, pulling back when the Academic coughed softly, frowning and failing to open his eyes. "You do that again, VIII," Vexen muttered hoarsely "and you'll be short a hand come morning."

Well, damn. Looked like he would have to put up with him. Oh well; more bait, Axel supposed.

"Well good morning to you, too, sunshine."

Vexen grunted tiredly, clenching his eyelids before slowly pulling himself up into a sitting position. He coughed weakly, bringing a hand to his mouth and hesitantly opening his eyes. He brought the same hand to the back of his head and pressed it against his hair, pulling it back to find his glove stained with blood. "Wonderful," the Academic mumbled bitterly before lowering himself back onto the ground and closing his eyes.

"Not that I care," Axel said, "but I wouldn't be goin' to sleep if I were you."

Vexen grunted.

Axel shrugged, turning back to Lexaeus. The Silent Hero had stopped hacking up water, but was still coughing. The Flurry of Dancing Flames looked up at the darkening sky with a slight frown.

"Well," he said conversationally, "I think that this is a good stopping point for the day, don't you?"

Lexaeus said nothing; merely shot him a look that, in all honesty, Axel wasn't too comfortable with. But he did pull himself to his feet and step away from the river, separating the trio from the water with a wall of stone in an instant.

* * *

><p>With the help of a flashlight, Lexaeus eventually deduced that Vexen had received a concussion, and had been up most of the night ensuring that the Academic hadn't nodded off, much to the latter's very vocal displeasure. Potions and death threats were exchanged over the course of several very long hours.<p>

So in the end, Axel was the only one of them that had gotten any sleep.

Lexaeus was almost certainly exhausted, but didn't show it. Vexen, on the other hand, couldn't seem to stop complaining. First he bitched about his headache, then his dizziness; his lack of sleep; his aching feet; his tattered clothes; his soaked pack. Axel was tempted to set him alight, _very_ tempted, but he had an idea that such an action wouldn't sit well with the Silent Hero.

Besides, Axel really had no one to blame but himself for being out here. Vexen or no Vexen, homicidal little girls or no homicidal little girls, he would make sure that Marluxia would suffer for what he had done- preferably by way of a slow and torturous death. That would wipe that stupid little smirk off his face _real_ quick.

The group had been more careful, more hesitant the second day as they made their way through the forest. Every little noise was met by them halting and searching around for the source, feeling that much more ridiculous when they found nothing. Weapons were drawn repeatedly, and the only reason the things hadn't stayed out was because lugging them around a mountain range was- to make the biggest understatement of the fucking _century_- rather exhausting.

All three of their elements came in handy, whether it be Lexaeus shoving a rock out of the way or Vexen moving some ice or snow, Axel starting fires when the cold became too much for himself and the Silent Hero.

They couldn't really say they were making progress, seeing as they really had no idea where they were going in the first place, but Saïx had said something about a valley between his drug-induced comas; a valley that was only a few feet from the entrance to the village. Something about a statue, too.

Whatever. The sooner they found the statue, the sooner he'd get rid of Marluxia. Unless the bastard had _not_ gone to the village like everyone had assumed, but-

Axel tried not to think too hard on it.

* * *

><p>The sun had already set on the second day when it began to rain. <em>No<em>, Axel thought, _not rain_. Sleet_._

If there was anything Lea hated more than rain, it was sleet. Not that Radiant Garden had much of a problem with such weather in the first place, but it had shown up often enough for him to grow to despise it. Wet and cold, always knocking the power out so he couldn't do _fun_ things like play video games or baseball or some other shit like that. At least snow got you out of school.

"So what now?" Axel muttered, tightening his hood with a scowl as they rested in the mouth of a shallow cave. Lexaeus was asleep in a corner, so he didn't really expect an answer.

Vexen surprised him. "What else?" he mumbled with a condescending tone, failing to look up as he scribbled in one of his less damaged notebooks. He had his hood up, too, much to Axel's delight. Looked like Mr. Science couldn't handle the cold as much as he thought he could. "We keep walking. And don't you _dare_ complain. The only reason you're out here is because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. At least _you_ were given a _choice_."

"Kettle, meet pot. And I wasn't complaining. Merely assessing the situation."

Vexen scoffed, but didn't say anything else as he returned to his scribbling.

Axel brought his knees to his chest and stared out at the forest, scarcely visible beyond the curtain of falling ice. There was a small shelf of rock just outside the cave, just barely wide enough for the three of them to stand on, and beyond that a fifty foot drop into the trees. Scaling the mountain had been a bitch and a half, even with Lexaeus doing all of the work. Vexen had complained of nearly breaking his ankle and falling off multiple times, and, for once, the Flurry of Dancing Flames couldn't really blame him. The place was an absolute death trap.

Not that it wasn't tempting to just shove Vexen off a cliff and watch him go splat.

"What are you chuckling about, VIII?"

"Nothing important, gramps."

"Hmph." Vexen lowered his pen and shoved his notebook into his pack, shuffling back to rest against a wall. "It's your turn to keep watch. And if you try anything funny…"

Axel's grin was a flash of white in the dark. "It's almost as if you don't have any faith in me, Vexen."

The Academic glared, but didn't respond beyond that. He collapsed onto his side and closed his eyes, pressing himself against the wall as far as he could.

One less annoyance, then.

Axel turned back to the view and amused himself by starting small fires on the rock, counting down the seconds until they were extinguished by the sleet and wind.

* * *

><p>Several hours passed, and the sleet had yet to let up, the storm now intercut by the occasional lightning bolt. Axel was dangerously close to nodding off. Scorch marks dotted the stone before him, the mingling scents of smoke and ozone still heavy in the air. He bit his tongue.<p>

Something shuffled behind him. He turned to see the looming mass that was Lexaeus, the Nobody's silhouette barely visible in the darkened cave. "Oh good, you're up. Say, why don't you help a guy out and-?"

"_Run._"

Axel felt a lump rise in his throat, his uneasiness dulled by his fatigue. "Wha-?"

Lexaeus grabbed his pack and darted to the other side of the cave, shaking Vexen awake.

"Lexaeus?" the Academic mumbled sleepily in the darkness. "What is the meaning of-?"

"_Run! Earthquake!_"

Axel and Vexen shot up in near-perfect unison, wide awake in an instant.

"Oh, you've got to be _shitting_ me," Axel forced between his teeth, and darted out of the cave within a fraction of a second. He felt the rock shift beneath his feet and he jolted, but was relieved to find that it was only Lexaeus manipulating it, lowering them to the ground as fast as he could.

"It's moderately powerful," Lexaeus forced through his lips, struggling as he steadied the rock. "Get over to that clearing. Get as far away from the trees as possible. I can try to protect us from falling rocks, but-"

The ground began to shake violently. Axel clung to the Silent Hero's shoulder when he lost his balance and almost tumbled off, nearly taking the larger Nobody with him. They were saved by Vexen- -_Vexen_, of all people- when he shoved them back with a small chunk of free-floating ice, grunting as he very nearly lost his balance, too.

Sleet pelted down on them, but no one seemed to notice. They scrambled to get to the clearing as the earth around them rumbled loudly, nightmarishly, the sound intercut by sharp cracks as rocks split and trees tipped over. It was dark, very dark, and the only light they had was a dull crescent moon and a sporadic bolt of lightning, which struck the mountain not that far up from where they were and showered their footprints with sparks. Axel pulled out a chakram and set it alight, keeping the flame small enough to extinguish it in an instant if he were unfortunate enough to trip. His vision improved, but not by much. The ground was slick with ice. The tremors were long and intense, and he came _this_ close to getting crushed by a falling tree at least twice.

Surprisingly, Vexen was the first to make it to the clearing, crumpling to the ground and clinging onto a boulder for dear life. Lexaeus was next, collapsing next to the Academic and turning to face Axel. The Flurry of Dancing Flames reached out for a hand, his vision swimming, and Lexaeus took it, yanking him down onto his knees.

As cliché as it sounded, the quake seemed to last for minutes rather than seconds. Axel wasn't willing to admit that they had _huddled_ together, but they had, Lexaeus occasionally raising a hand to direct a falling rock aside and Vexen curling beneath his shield. Lucky bastards, both of them. He could only _burn_ things.

The quake eventually subsided, leaving the three Nobodies shaking in the cold with sleet noisily bouncing off the ground all around them. Axel gasped for air, opening and closing his mouth like a fish as his pulse pounded wildly. Sleet _hurt_ when it hit you in the face, and he found himself pulling his hood so tight that it was almost completely closed.

Axel flipped onto his stomach and forced himself into a kneel, holding his shaking arms out before him in an effort to regain his balance. He heard Lexaeus shift next to him, but couldn't see a thing past his hood.

They sat like that for about a minute, wheezing, all three of them. Axel was the one to break the silence, coughing harshly. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't think I'll be falling asleep anytime soon."

He heard Vexen scoff. Axel widened his hood to find the Academic still lying flat on his back beneath his shield, his blond hair cascading over the edges of his hood and standing out in the dark.

Lexaeus stood, seemingly oblivious to the sleet as he surveyed their surroundings. Axel pulled himself to his feet and walked up next to him.

While the clearing was relatively… clear of rubble, fallen trees littered the surrounding area. Looking out at it all, he wondered how there were even any trees _left_, if this was such a common occurrence. There were numerous cracks in the earth, and ditches where rocks had smashed against the ground and broken into many pieces. Already the sleet was beginning to bury it all.

"Stay on your guard from now on," Lexaeus said. "There will almost certainly be aftershocks." Axel nodded dumbly.

The Silent Hero pulled a folded stack of papers out of his pack, shielding it from the sleet with his arm. He wordlessly passed it to Axel, who knew what it was before he had even gotten a good look at it.

Isa's handwriting had been utter shit, plain and simple, and Saïx's wasn't much better off. It looked every bit like chicken scratch, and really, Saïx was the only person he knew that could somehow make a lowercase l look like a capital u; while printing, no less. Still, if Axel was of any use to the Organization, it thrived in his ability to decipher Number VII's handwriting.

Axel pressed the report against his chest, absentmindedly reaching over his shoulder for a flashlight only to realize that his pack was gone. He cursed, pivoting on his heels and finding nothing. A bright flame was out of the question in weather like this. "Well, shit. Anyone got a flashlight?"

"I do," Vexen mumbled tiredly, appearing at his left with such suddenness that Axel couldn't help but flinch. The Academic smirked from within his hood as he pulled something out of his bag, and he wanted to strangle him for it. Axel reached out for the flashlight only for Vexen to pull it back, scowling. "I refuse to allow a Neophyte such as yourself to handle it. It's waterproof and cost me quite a bit of munny."

Axel snarled- the place was really starting to get to him- but returned his attention to the report. "_Fine_. But _you're_ holding it up for me." Vexen snorted, but did just that. With a pop the bulb lit, reflecting off of the sleet and illuminating the damp paper.

Axel scanned. He'd gone over this several times before, but had yet to actually _read_ the thing. Let's see, earthquakes, where was the bit about the earthquakes? Blah blah, useless junk, water stain, forest this, darkness that, a comparatively lengthy section about… _butterflies?_ The hell?Was Isa seriously out here for four days chasing _butterflies?_

There was a sudden sharp crack, coming from the trees behind them. All three Nobodies jerked back to face the source of the sound. Vexen ran the flashlight's beam across the trees. When several seconds passed and they had found nothing, Axel hesitantly turned back, attempting to focus on the report. Lexaeus bowed a bit to get a good look at the paper, frowning slightly. When Vexen failed to light the page, Axel grunted in frustration.

"Hey, Vex? A little help? It's a _tad_ dark out and I don't have-" Axel twisted a bit to face the Academic, snarl very visible on his face when he turned to find nothing but empty space.

Axel heard Lexaeus inhale sharply. They both pivoted on their heels, searching frantically for the Academic. "Vexen?" the Silent Hero called out, taking a step. "Vexen?" No response. "_Vexen!_"

Axel stomped forward, refusing to admit that this was _freaking him out._ "_Vexen,_ you get your skinny ass out here _right now_ or I swear on all that is holy that I will _end you!_" Nothing. "Do you _want_ to get burned, old man?"

"_Axel!_" The Flurry of Dancing Flames was yanked back by his hood with a yelp, glaring over his shoulder at the Silent Hero.

"What do you think you-?"

Axel felt it- unmistakable now- the initial trembling of an earthquake. _Oh, not_ this_ shit again,_ was all he could think as he was pulled to the ground, shamelessly clinging to the Silent Hero's arm. The tremors were somehow even _more_ violent than before, and Axel couldn't help but wonder how Lexaeus could _stand_ it.

He didn't feel quite as panicky this time. He could even go as far to say that he felt _relieved_; there was something to focus on other than the fact that someone had just vanished into _thin air._ Axel could live with this; falling trees and rocks could be avoided- spontaneous disappearance, on the other hand…

He felt the ground shift rather strangely beneath his feet before he was knocked flat on his back by what had to be the strongest tremor yet. Lexaeus shouted something, but he couldn't make it out over the din of the earthquake.

There was a sudden ear-splitting _crack!_ Lexaeus tried to pull him to his feet, but it was too late.

The ground caved beneath them. They tumbled into pitch-blackness and were swallowed whole by the earth.


	3. Chapter 2

AN: FINALLY. REWRITES ON THIS ONE LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE.

Ahem.

Many thanks to all my reviewers! I appreciate every one. (Everyone seems to think that the ghost girl was frightening. Looks like I did my job. I can only hope I continue doing so, as it's going to get worse from here on out, belive you me. (And TvTropes? mixedberries, you fooler, it was only the second part. You're only inflating my ego. ;) ) Thanks for reading!

* * *

><p>He was aware of his headache, aware of the fact that he felt like someone had just punched him in the stomach, and not much else.<p>

Vexen stared up at the sky with dazed, uncomprehending bewilderment. The sleet was gone, he knew that much. As were V and VIII. The flashlight flickered just out of his reach as he lay sprawled on the ground, casting bizarre shadows on the trees.

It was a long time before he managed to break the crust of dried saliva that had glued his lips together and draw a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes were wide, unblinking, his mind racing to find a logical explanation for what he had just seen. A Heartless—it had to have been a Heartless. Yes—nothing more than a measly little Shadow, no more threatening to his empty shell of a body than a common housefly, and just as stupid. And yet the sight of that creature had awakened a sort of terror deep within him not unlike that experienced by Even in his final moments as a whole being. The glowing yellow eyes, the pointed claws, the lower half of the face suddenly breaking apart to reveal a set of jagged teeth frozen in a snarling smile-!

Vexen closed his eyes and groaned, fighting off the urge to just lay here boneless and close his eyes. He flexed his right hand, clumsily flipping onto his stomach before rising to his knees and groping for the flashlight. He exhaled loudly when his fingers wrapped around the handle, relaxing some. It gave a final flicker before returning to its normal continuous beam.

He found himself in the middle of a narrow dirt road, the soil dry and grainy beneath his knees. Vexen lowered his head and shone the flashlight around, squinting. Trees stretched out endlessly on all sides, as dark and foreboding as the illustrations in the books of fairy tales he'd flipped through as a child. He half-expected to see Ichabod Crane come trotting out of the trees on his horse.

Vexen followed the light in a sloppy semicircle before he abruptly froze. There were faint lights in the distance, glowing red just downhill.

He pulled himself to his feet. His head ached now more than ever, sending throbbing pain down his neck, needling into his shoulders. And as tempting as it was, sitting here wouldn't make it magically disappear. Vexen staggered toward the lights, soil crunching beneath his feet. The forest was utterly silent except for his footsteps and occasional gasp, trees surrounding him on all sides. Unease seeped into the pit of his stomach like molasses, and for the first time in years he began to feel truly isolated. The moon itself seemed to have disappeared from the sky. Even the falling leaves were utterly soundless as they drifted ethereally all around him.

The throb in his head suddenly became a full-blown scream, enshrouding him in a white-hot nova. Vexen stumbled into a tree, grasping at his forehead and clenching his jaw as he felt a blinding pain stab at the backs of his eyes. He saw lights when he clamped his eyelids shut and cried out, collapsing to his knees and dropping the flashlight. He tangled his fingers in his hair, his ears ringing, his shoulders on _fire-!_

-And somewhere deep within the fog, he heard a mellow ringing, far different from the shrieking that was currently assaulting his ears. It was almost comforting, and he forced his eyes halfway open when he felt something brush against his wrist.

A splash of color, _bright red-!_

And the pain dulled.

Vexen panted, staring down at the butterfly on his wrist, his hair dangling in limp, greasy strands in front of his eyes. It slowly flapped its wings, stationary on the patch of skin between his glove and sleeve. "… What in the name of…?"

It was the strangest butterfly that he had ever seen. It was a glowing red- _glowing_, even its _legs_; the centers of its wings dotted with orange and yellow embers. Vexen cautiously raised his arm and looked the creature over, turning his wrist from time to time. He could make out the fine lines in its wings in the soft light it supplied. It did nothing but _slowly_ flutter its wings, radiating an oddly comforting warmth as the ringing continued.

And without warning, it took off.

Vexen jerked back, his headache forgotten as he watched it flutter to a nearby tree branch. He placed his hand on his knee and pushed himself up, staring for a moment before gradually making his way toward the butterfly. And when he was just barely a foot away from the tree, the creature took flight, going off in the direction of the lights.

Vexen blinked before closing his eyes and sighing, bringing a hand to his forehead and running it over his face. It was hardly logical to keep following the thing, but seeing as there was no sign of Lexaeus or Axel or any intelligent life at all, he lowered his hand and bent to retrieve the flashlight, continuing after it. Light had its benefits, and it wasn't like he had many other options, anyway, nor could he deny that he wasn't at least a tiny bit intrigued.

He followed the butterfly along a winding path for what felt like several minutes, limping after it as it glided from tree to tree. In some corner of his mind he recalled something about butterflies in VII's report. Crimson Butterflies- the Diviner had insisted that this was what they were called. Looking the creature over, it didn't appear to be crimson. Not quite- a bit too bright in some areas- but it _was_ a rich shade of red. Vexen remembered something else, a little blurb about how they were once sacred things, but- despite its length- the section didn't provide much more in terms of viable information.

And even now, the Academic couldn't help but wonder if the creatures were indigenous to the land- wherever "the land" happened to be. He couldn't sense so much as a speck of ice or snow- it seemed to be quite humid, in fact. The moon was a shadowed cutout dangling lifelessly in the cloudless sky. He supposed he should have counted his blessings- at least he was able to see fairly well without a flashlight.

Vexen cursed when he tripped over a buried tree branch and fell to all fours. Oh, yes. _Now_ he remembered one of the _many_ reasons why Even had loathed forests as much as he had. The Academic pulled himself up and brushed off his coat, grumbling to himself. Dead leaves and soil: two more things he would never miss. The sterile environment of a lab was all he would ever need.

The butterfly remained in its spot on… What exactly _was_ that thing?

Vexen craned his neck. It appeared to be a gate of some sort, not unlike ones he had seen at the Emperor's palace in the Land of Dragons. Parallel wooden poles rose scant inches above his head to support an ornate arch. Certainly a strange place for a gate. He couldn't locate so much as a tent or sign.

There was a noise that reminded him a bit of a wind chime, and he lowered his head just in time to see the butterfly float off toward a relatively flat area. He followed.

At first he thought it to be his imagination; a quiet little sob created by his mind for powers knew what reason. Only when he was a few steps from the gate did he realize it was genuine, and his headache returned. He groaned again, closing his eyes and massaging his temples as he came to a stop.

Vexen opened his eyes to discover a woman standing next to him- no, that wasn't right, a _girl_. He flinched. She was dressed in white with a red cord tied around her waist, her shoulder-length black hair pooling around her immaculate collar. He towered over her as she sobbed into her hands. She couldn't have been more than sixteen years old.

And she was missing her feet.

He did more than flinch, this time. Everything below the mid-calf was gone, fading into nothingness as she floated over the dirt. Vexen caught his breath and took a cautious step forward, gazing uneasily at her.

When she didn't respond to his presence, Vexen decided to take a chance and walk past her, careful to keep a watchful eye. She never moved, continuing to sob even after he passed through the gate. He slowly turned away, stepping onto more even ground. When he turned back seconds later, she was gone. He swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.

"Martel above," he whispered. The words were heavy on his tongue. It felt strange to say them after so many years.

The butterfly was resting on the ground not far from a crackling torch, its wings drifting back and forth. For reasons he couldn't name, Vexen eased himself onto his knees, allowing the creature to land on his wrist. Heat radiated from its wings as it crawled up his arm, little pinpricks of warmth dotting wherever its legs touched. His eyes widened as it came to a stop on his shoulder. The ringing never ceased.

"Another one, then?" someone muttered just above him in a thin, inflectionless voice. Vexen started, looking up.

There was a young woman standing before him, frowning deeply. She was dressed in an odd blue garment that was rather similar in style to the outfit of the crying girl, her wide sleeves dangling off of her arms and coming to a stop just past her knees. Her hair was long and black, obscuring her eyes. Her frown deepened, lines forming on her face.

"…What is this place?" Vexen asked, rising. He noticed with a detached sort of interest that she was almost as tall as he was. She cocked her head, and as her hair fell away from her face he saw that her eyes were bright yellow-the color of molten steel- accentuated by the dark lines beneath them. Her pupils were impossibly small.

"… Such a shame," the woman murmured hoarsely, looking upon him with pity before lowering her eyes. She shook her head, pulling something from her sash and raising it to the torch. "But sister says it can't be helped." The torch flared with a very audible _whump_. She took a few steps to the next one, lighting it in the same manner.

"What are you talking about?" Vexen asked, tense. The butterfly left his shoulder and flew to the woman, crawling down the back of her head and disappearing as she turned to face him.

"The village has pulled you in." Her eyes roved over him, and she shook her head again. "Such a shame, such a shame. You have my sympathies." She turned away and started down a narrow path.

Vexen rushed after her, reaching out for her shoulder. "What-?" He stopped short as she turned to him abruptly, her eyes narrowing as she got a better look at him in the light.

"Your clothes…" She reached out and ran her fingers over his cuff, cocking her head again. Her touch was icy even through the leather.

He yanked his arm back, sneering. "_Excuse_ me-!"

And suddenly her face broke apart. Her stony mask shattered, and what he was left with was the countenance of an insanely angry child. Her hands shot out in a lightning-quick motion, clamping onto his wrist and forcing his arm behind his back with a snap. Vexen cried out, and before he had a chance to retaliate he felt something cold and sharp press against his throat.

"Tell me." Her voice was noticeably deeper; her hoarse whisper now a rough shout. It was loud enough to make him wince. "Who are you people? What have you done? _Tell me!_"

Vexen grunted, twisting his wrist in her powerful grasp and shoving an icicle into her gut. She merely gasped, releasing his arm and stumbling backwards. He spun on his heels and summoned his shield, holding it out before him and taking a swing. It flew over her head, and he jumped back.

"I have _no idea_ what you are talking about!" he shouted, quickly sidestepping as she lunged at him with a snarl. He swung his shield and missed, flinging icicles in her direction and leaping back with a grunt of exertion. "What is _wrong _with you?" he shrieked.

"Your group!" she cried as she pulled herself into a tense crouch. Her constricting clothes made her movements stiff and awkward. Her sleeves dragged across the ground, rasping against the multitudes of dead leaves. "You've _done something_ to him! I don't know what it is, but you will _pay!_"

"What are you _talking about?_" The woman growled before rushing forward. Vexen dodged her easily. He lifted his shield over his head and brought it down, aiming for her back.

After a moment of inaction he was astonished to find that the shield had passed straight through her body, striking the ground with a hollow _thump_. She took advantage of his surprise and swung, her knife slicing in a horizontal arc just below his knees. Vexen cried out, stumbling back and coating the earth with a thin layer of ice. He flailed before losing his footing and falling flat on his back. A rock lodged itself in his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. He groaned.

The woman hovered over him, once more holding the knife to his throat. "I don't know _who_ you are," she said shakily, spit shiny on her teeth, "I don't know _what_ you are-!"

Vexen snarled. "Whatever _you_ are-!" An icicle formed in his hand, and he struck out. She flew back, her knife leaving a shallow cut on his neck. The Academic forced himself to his feet, rubbing his throat as his shield formed in his grasp. "You'd best _stay away_ from _me_ before you do something you'd regret!"

The woman narrowed her eyes, crouching once more, her knife held out before her. She suddenly winced, collapsing her knees. One quick strike and-! Vexen grunted, holding his side as a sharp pain shot down his side. He fell to one knee as the pain overtook him. The same shrieking from before ripped into his ears and left just as quickly, leaving him gasping for breath.

The woman scoffed quietly. Her lips peeled back in a knowing grin, her eyes darkening as her pupils dilated. "Come, sister." She held out her hand. A butterfly- perhaps the same one from before, Vexen wasn't sure- landed atop her fingers. There was a whooshing noise. Darkness rushed all around her, engulfing her, her lifeless eyes the last thing he saw before she disappeared.

Vexen collapsed fully with a groan, his energy gone. Not ten minutes in and already he'd had to battle a creature of darkness; just what he needed after all that he had encountered in the past two days. He held his head. To have a headache on top of everything else-!

He sat there for a few minutes, running his fingers against his scalp, his eyelids clamped shut. Blood was still pouring from his knees, and he dreaded to think what was on that knife. He yanked off his pack and pulled out a bottle of disinfectant spray, applying it to the wounds, gritting his teeth. He then set back in place, taking out a half-empty potion bottle. He poured some into his mouth, grimacing at the bitter taste as the area around the wounds began to tingle. Re-shouldering the pack, he pulled himself up.

Vexen limped forward. His legs stung horribly, but he supposed he could manage for now.

He turned slowly, surveying his surroundings. It was eerily peaceful, much like it was amongst the never-ending sea of trees. There was a red lantern glowing far off to his left. A large rock sat before him, corded off with worn, fraying ropes. Past that he could see what he could only assume to be Minakami Village, shrouded in fog and shadow. There was a single white light off in the distance at the front of one of the buildings, but he didn't dare go to it, not now. Who knew what was waiting for him there?

One of the torches crackled, shattering the silence.

Vexen tightened one of the shoulder straps absentmindedly. Where to now? He turned from side to side. There were identical worn paths in both directions, though the one to the right had a larger amount of trees. Now sitting still, he heard the faint sound of rushing water. It seemed like it was coming from his left, but he couldn't be sure. Gnawing his lip, he ran it over in his head. The woman had originally gone to take the path to the right before she had decided to attack him. No doubt he would eventually run into her in the event that he had chosen to do the same. He sighed, hooking one of his thumbs into one of the shoulder straps.

Left it was.

Vexen staggered onto the path and went down a gentle slope.

* * *

><p>After a few slow minutes of limping across dead leaves and dark soil, the Academic came to a bridge. It appeared solid enough, and had a guard running along each side, but the sheer drop into the river below discouraged him. The water was at least twenty feet below the boards.<p>

Vexen chewed his lip contemptuously.

Ducking below the low arch marking the end of the cliff, he placed one scuffed boot on the edge of the bridge, tested it. It creaked lightly, but did nothing else. Clenching his jaw, he placed his other foot before him, sure to keep a tight hold on the guards.

Nothing.

Relaxing some, he made his way across, his right boot dragging over the wood with a loud scraping noise as he struggled to walk normally. Ducking his head beneath the other arch, he stepped onto solid ground.

Thick fog drifted over the soil in this area, seemingly seeping out of the cracks in the earth as it was much too warm for it to form naturally. Vexen could make out several trees when he squinted. Before him were several tall rectangular objects standing upright in a row, looking like little polygonal islands amidst a sea of murky white.

He stepped cautiously forward, his legs cutting into the still fog and kicking it into excited little curls. Upon closer inspection he discovered that the rectangles were in fact stone slabs covered in strange writing. It looked like Chinese. They were arranged oddly, the majority of them set in an angular spiral with a short line of what could only be graves in the center. Vexen turned back to face the river. There was a large tree sitting off to his left, isolated from the rest. He walked over to it, flattening his back against it and lowering himself to the ground. The grass was tall here, providing him with a crude sort of camouflage.

Despite everything, sleep was calling for him. Hunger could wait. The tree wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was better than sleeping flat on the ground. Pulling off his pack and setting it in his lap, Vexen sighed wearily before closing his eyes and tossing his head back to rest it against the trunk.

* * *

><p>Miyako trudged up the hill.<p>

Masumi was here. She could sense it. She clutched a piece of notepaper to her breasts and stared straight ahead, following the flashlight's beam as she became trapped in her thoughts. It was stained, but she recognized his distinctive handwriting, his neatly-written mathematical calculations. She had found it on the ground a few minutes ago, crumpled and dirty and half-buried in leaves. A sign.

Hope.

Miyako found that locking away her fear for her life deep in her heart was easier than she had imagined. She knew that it would do nothing for her here. Masumi was just as alone as she was in this horrible place. And if he was hurt…

Miyako paused, leaning down and pulling off her shoe. She straightened her torn stocking with mechanical efficiency. It had been rubbing uncomfortably at her toes for some time now. "Masumi," she whispered, staring straight ahead as ragged nylon glided over her legs, "I'm coming, Masumi. Please don't worry."

It had been nearly fifteen days since she had become trapped here. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since she'd last slept, nearly ten hours since she'd eaten or drank anything. Her supply of water and granola bars was gradually diminishing, and she doubted that Masumi had any food of his own. If he were to starve-!

She could do this. She knew she could.

It had been a long time since Miyako had last seen the men with the torches. All she had to do was stay calm and hide, and they would be none the wiser. And yet the sight of them struck fear into her heart, often paralyzing her in an instant. She spent her time hiding when Masumi could hurt, could be d-!

Miyako shook her head, fighting back tears. She was strong. Mother had been lying when she said otherwise. Masumi had taught her that, had taught her that she was worth something, that Mother was just…

Yes. A little hunger, a little thirst, a little exhaustion, and she could see Masumi again. And they could go back home, back home to their little apartment in the city, and sleep. Curl up next to each other in their little futon and _sleep_.

Miyako breathed, rising to her feet and narrowing her eyes. The torches had been lit recently. The woman had been here, the long-haired woman in the blue kimono. She had seemed nice enough; pleasantly neutral, at the very least. She had not attacked her, and that was enough.

She tightened her grip on the flashlight, walking slowly toward the torch. Dead leaves crunched beneath her feet.

She was so terribly tired. And cold. Perhaps the flames would rejuvenate her. She folded Masumi's note in half, tucking it under her arm with the flashlight. Miyako lifted her hands over the flames, rubbing them. She sighed, smiling for the first time since she found the notepaper. It felt wonderful. She was tempted to rip a branch from one of the many trees surrounding her and set it alight to take with her. But only just.

Fighting back a yawn, she turned away. Perhaps Masumi had stumbled into the cemetery since she'd last visited this area.

Miyako pulled out her flashlight, shining it before her and stepping towards the leftmost path. Her toes moved uncomfortably in her shoes, and she frowned. She lowered herself to the ground once more, straightening her stocking with that same distant swiftness that she had taught herself over the years.

There was a footprint in the soil.

Miyako went rigid, suddenly wide-awake. She sucked in a breath in a single convulsive gulp that seemed to restart her heart.

The print dwarfed her tiny shoe. There were horizontal ridges running across its length. Did Masumi have shoes like that? Maybe he was wearing his work boots? Without thought, she delicately traced the pattern with her thin index finger. The soil was wet, and surprisingly cold.

Miyako looked up, following the prints with growing excitement. There was a melting chunk of ice next to one of them, tiny enough to go undetected if not viewed from a particular angle. She frowned, following them in a crouch like a wild animal, the hem of her skirt dragging along in the mud. The mud squelched beneath her feet and fingertips. She ignored it. They came to an end as the soil gave way to dead leaves.

"Masumi," she whispered, "Masumi, are you here?"

Miyako rose to her feet, clenching her jaw. Narrowing her eyes as she was overcome with newfound determination, she broke into a brisk walk, off toward the cemetery.

* * *

><p>Miyako crossed the bridge, her back ramrod straight as she shone her flashlight around. The mist was surprisingly thick. Her arms were covered in gooseflesh. "Masumi!" she called out. "Masumi?" No answer.<p>

Miyako made her way to the cemetery, working her way through the fog as water coated her legs. She stopped, turning slowly, her face marred by worry. She could hardly see a thing.

There was a groan, faint but unmistakable, off to her right. Eyes widening, Miyako turned, jogging off in that direction. "Masumi!" she called. She couldn't help herself. "Masu-!"

She was interrupted by a loud male voice. "For the love of nothing, woman! _Stop shouting!"_

Miyako froze, her heart leaping into her throat. After a moment, she gripped the flashlight. She had never been comfortable with the English language. Too many idioms. Too many unexplainable rules that she could never wrap her mind around. She'd taken a couple of classes in her time as a student, but there was no doubt that she was rusty by now, and even back when these things were fresh in her mind she found herself questioning how anyone could master such an unnecessarily complicated language. Americans always joked about the "backwards" countries—they were the only ones that drove on the correct side of the road, Asians wrote from right-to-left—but in her eyes there was nothing more backwards than saying yes when one meant no. _Didn't you go to the store? Yes, I didn't; yes, I did; no, I didn't; no, I did!_

Biting back her irritation, Miyako closed her eyes and tried to remember. "H-herr-he_ll_-o?" she called. There was only silence, and what little confidence she had in her speaking skills shriveled away to nothing. Still, she tried again."P-please. I apologize!" She turned slowly, seeing nothing even with her flashlight. "Please, where are you?"

"Ugh-!" The man shuffled about in the fog, grumbling something indecipherable.

Miyako stepped back when a head broke the surface of the mist. If not for the voice, she would have thought him to be a woman. Long blond hair, sharp features. A moment passed and she saw that he was dressed entirely in black.

And he was tall. So very tall. Was he standing on a hill? An incline? He was clearly irritated, and Miyako felt intimidated, despite herself. She lowered her gaze. "I am…" She breathed deeply. "I am vely—v-_very_ sorry. I was looking for—"

"I could care less about what you are doing!" The man rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. "And you are not helping my headache!"

Most of what he said went straight over her head, but his tone conveyed enough. "I… I am sorry…"

The man shook his head. "Never mind." He stooped down to grab his bag and stomped forward, shouldering it as he made his way to the bridge. Miyako scrambled out of his path, turning to stare at him quizzically. She blinked and ran after him, her bag slapping noisily against her hip.

"Wait! Please, wait!" she called.

The man turned, visibly annoyed. "What do you want?" he asked gruffly.

Miyako came to a stop. "Please. You are… um…" She paused, her hands clenching and unclenching as she combed her mind for the correct words. "You are… the first p-pel- _per_son I see." The man scoffed, but didn't turn away. Miyako continued, mildly encouraged. "Please, have-you-seen-this-man?" There, that was better. She gave a small smile. She pulled a photograph out of her bag, passing it to him. She and Masumi had taken it the day he disappeared, just outside his parents' house. The man took it, looking like he was at least pretending to maintain interest.

"No. Sorry." He passed it back to her, his expression softening just slightly. It looked positively unnatural. "How long have you been here?"

Miyako stuffed the picture back into her bag. She paused as his words were tossed into the scanner. _How-long-have-you-bin?_ Why was he asking her about bins? Miyako shook her head. No. "_How-long-have-you-_been?" Been. _Be._ To be… here? The sentence fell into place. She did a quick calculation in her head. She'd recorded each time her watch had passed twelve in her notebook, so... "For two weeks," she said softly, nodding to herself.

The man stared at her with newfound interest. "So you know your way around this place?" he asked.

_Uh-round. What is "uh-round?" What is a "round?"_ Miyako closed her eyes and willed her racing thoughts to come to a stop. She scanned the sentence from behind her eyelids. "Um, I…" she said, stalling for more translation time. _"So you know your…?"Know. _Know. So she knew her what? _Place. Place. _Place. So… so she knew her place? What?

The man stared down at her as he would a particularly stupid child. "Well?"

With that final bit of encouragement, it all clicked into place. _Do you know your way around here?_ Ah. So that was it. "… Yes," she said. So she was being used. Not that she could blame him in a place like this. "… How have you been here long?" The man stared at her as is she had just sprouted lobsters from her ears. Flustered, she went over what she had just said, feeling her cheeks heat up. Where had she messed up? That was the same thing he had just asked her, right?

"… Less than a day," he answered after a moment. His annoyed expression returned, but he didn't seem to be directing it towards her. That was good. "But I've been walking around in the forest for longer than that, so…" He brought his hand to his lips, staring at her as he tapped at his chin in consideration. "Would you happen to know of a safe place to sleep? Something secluded?"

Most of his words were vaguely-familiar nonsense to her, but she heard _sleep_, and knew that his tone implied that he was asking a question. "Are you ask-ing for a place-to-sleep?"

The man stared at her quizzically, a bit of that dark irritation returning to his face. Miyako clenched her jaw and willed herself not to bow in apology or take a step back. "Yes…?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

Miyako felt a pang of embarrassment. "I am sorry. I do not speak English very well."

The man's brow rose higher. "'English?'" The man tapped his chin again, narrowing his eyes. They suddenly widened as realization dawned on him. He even pointed his finger to the sky. "Ah, you mean from England!"

It was Miyako's turn to stare. "… Yes," she answered flatly.

"Never liked that world. Too wet. Too filthy." The man shook his head once more, giving a dismissive wave. "But I digress. That's not what we call it where I come from."

Miyako just stared.

"Well?" The man stared at her expectantly, crossing his arms. She half-expected him to start tapping his foot.

Miyako looked down at her feet, flexed her toes. "Follow me," she said.

* * *

><p>"A-are you okay?" Miyako asked, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. "Do you…" She paused, that maddening sense of helplessness returning. "Help?" she finally asked.<p>

"I'm fine. Just open the door."

Miyako frowned darkly, almost scowled, but complied in silence. The wooden door creaked on its hinges as she pulled it closed.

The pair stepped into the relative darkness of the abandoned house, the dirt floor crunching beneath their feet. Miyako turned just in time to see the man wobble and catch himself on the wall, cursing under his breath. She felt a pang of pity, trying and failing to convince herself that he did not deserve such things with the way he was treating her. "Stairs," she said, gesturing aimlessly. "No rails."

"I'll be fine," he grumbled. "Just hurry up and move."

Miyako bit her lip before she could say anything she would regret. "Yes."

She crossed the hall, brushing her fingertips against the alien roughness of the walls. The wood was cracked, splintering. It reminded her of her childhood home; a worn little place that was just a step up from a shack. It was constantly in dire need of a new coat of paint, and the tiny patch of grass before it was perpetually overgrown. Mother had raised her alongside her two older brothers in that house after father left. She felt a pang of nostalgia, tasted mineral-rich well water on her tongue, and closed her eyes. As uninviting as this place was, it unearthed memories of her childhood she had not realized she had forgotten.

The man coughed. "Are you just going to stand there or are you actually going to do something useful?"

There was a wooden board by her feet, coated in a decades-old layer of dust that was easily older than she was. She fought off the urge to pick it up and break it over his head.

"I am sorry." Miyako paused, gingerly reaching out to run her fingertips across the wall. She thought of thorn bushes and beestings, of playing baseball with her brothers on hot summer days and running barefoot across freshly-cut grass, of her mother's bitter stares and her grandmother's rusted knitting needles. Before she knew it she was relaying her thoughts to the man. She gestured to the walls, to the building as a whole. "Like my child… Like my child-herd home."

The man scoffed. "Then I pity you and your undoubtedly horrific childhood. It's a miracle you haven't killed yourself yet." He shifted his weight from the wall to his good foot and sniffed, looking to the ground. And, just barely audible beneath his breath, he muttered: "Though I guess that makes two of us."

Miyako perked up, stuttering slightly as she struggled to find the proper words. "You… You…?" She made the same aimless gesture from before.

He answered her with a positively _evil_ glare, and the conversation was dead before it even had the chance to start.

Miyako climbed up the short set of stairs, stepping onto the raised wooden floor and turning back to face the man. Even from up here, he towered over her. "Help?" she asked again, already reaching out for his arm. He shoved it away, grumbling as he pulled himself up the steps. Miyako took a step back and turned, biting her lip. It was very tempting to lead him up the other staircase to the second story, but she quickly decided against it. He had to be exhausted, maybe afraid. He was certainly prideful, and in obvious pain. Surely that was why he was acting this way?

"The room is here," she said, gesturing to a sliding door off to their left. He grunted, but followed after her, his heavy boots thumping against the creaking wooden floor. She pulled the door open and stood to the side to let him through. He went inside, immediately collapsing against a wall. He laid his legs out before him, looking around sleepily before finally closing his eyes.

_Not so much as a thank you_, Miyako thought, staving off her anger with a deep breath. She stepped in after him, pulling the door shut as quietly as she could. She stepped over him and made her way to her own corner, which had served as her bed for the past several days. It was cluttered with various items: a stack of notebooks here, a pen there. There was a comb lying on the floor a few inches away. Shoving it to the side with her foot, Miyako kicked off her shoes, wriggling her toes childishly.

"I'm sorry, Masumi," she whispered. "I'm just so _tired_."

She pulled off her stockings and tucked them into her shoes. The man was already snoring. After sharing a bedroom with both of her brothers for nearly thirteen years, she found herself unaffected.

Miyako pressed her back against the wall, eyeing the man a final time before lowering herself to the floor and closing her eyes.


	4. Chapter 3

Vexen stirred awake a few hours later, opening his eyes and immediately pulling himself up. It was a sense of routine-rather than circumstance- that forced him awake after only a few hours of sleep. His Other had already had a habit of regularly substituting caffeine for rest.

His legs throbbed dully, but the pain in his head was worse. He rubbed his temples, groaning softly and clenching his eyes shut.

"Are you okay?" Startled, Vexen forced his eyes open. A moment passed as they adjusted to the dark and he found the woman that had led him here standing in front of him, her feet bare. She stared down at him with concern in her eyes. Her fingers were interlaced just above her navel as though her hands were clasped in prayer, her thumbs carving nervous little circles into the air as the twirled around each other.

"I'm fine. It's just a headache." He sighed, clenching his hands, his leather gloves creaking. "You have a watch, correct? How long was I asleep?"

She stared before slowly looking down at her wrist. "Two hours."

"Hmph." He rubbed his forehead again, drawing his knees up to his chest.

She just cocked her head. "Do you have… food… or wah-ter? I have small, um, I mean to say-"

"I have some. More food than water."

The woman nodded after a few seconds of translating in her head. She waved a hand in her direction, effectively pointing to herself, and whether or not it was conscious on her part was forever left a mystery to him. "I have more water. We can..." She waved her hands in front of her again to convey her message.

Vexen closed his eyes as another wave of pain swept across his head. "Whatever." He pulled himself up, limping into the tiny room the woman had stepped out of.

There was a red notebook spread across a large box, a leaking pen splayed across it. The pages were covered in an unfamiliar language. "What do you have?" he asked absently.

The woman stepped around him, snapping the notebook shut. Offense bubbled up in his throat. "I have… um…" She pulled her bag off of the ground and reached into it, pulling out a handful of individually-wrapped rectangles. He couldn't recognize the language, but he'd seen the logo scrawled across the foil more times than he could count.

"Granola bars," he offered, pointing at them for good measure.

The woman broke into a nervous smile. "_Yes._" she said with an emphatic nod, "I have gruh-no-la bars. And some of water."

"The same," he said, idly running his fingers through his tangled hair and wincing when they met resistance, "and a few strips of dried beef."

"Hmm," was her only response. She sat down at one end of the box and pulled up a bag, emptying its contents across the surface. She had several pens and two small notebooks in addition to her store of food, a thin stack of photographs and what had to be newspaper clippings fastened to one of the notebooks with a warped paperclip. A plastic comb clogged with several strands of fine black hair tumbled over the edge of the box and hit the floor with a clatter.

Vexen sat down on the opposite end and grabbed his own bag, pulling out two small handfuls of food and leaving the rest tucked out of her sight. He wordlessly offered her a beef strip. She shook her head demurely. "Thank you," a pause for translation, "but I do not eat meat." She took a granola bar instead. Vexen frowned.

"There is a…" The woman paused, clenching her hands in frustration as she struggled to find the word. "… well?" Her hands relaxed, and she nodded to herself. "A well. In the… the gar-den. The water is…" She mimed taking a drink before passing him two bottles of crystal-clear water and a granola bar. The bar was strawberry flavored- a particular flavor that neither Even nor Vexen could stand- but he found himself taking it anyway. Variety was the spice of life, and all that nonsense.

"How long did you say you've been here?" he asked, peeling off the foil and taking a small bite. It tasted awful. Nothing unexpected.

"Two weeks," she answered immediately, tearing open her own bar. She bit into it with gusto. Vexen tried not to make a face.

"I don't see how you've managed to keep hold on your sanity," he muttered, cracking open a water bottle and gulping it down unashamedly. It was the sweetest water he had ever tasted. The woman gave him an odd look, but made no comment. Vexen took another bite out of the granola bar, chewing thoughtfully.

The room was momentarily silent as the two of them ate their breakfast, never once looking up from their laps. Vexen finished first, compulsively wiping the corner of his mouth with his knuckle. "So what now?" he asked. The woman blinked, her brow contorting as she processed the words. He sighed. "Are we splitting up?" Her brow knotted further and he immediately corrected himself. "Do _I-_" he pointed to himself, "leave _you-_-?" he pointed to her.

The corners of the woman's mouth turned downward for a moment as her cheeks began to redden. She was quiet as she turned it over in her mind. "It is… _dangerous_ here," she said with another shallow nod.

Vexen could only scoff. Only now did he begin to wonder how she hadn't been swallowed up by the omnipresent darkness. "So are we staying together, then?" he asked. At the very least, there would be another target if he were unfortunate enough to run into another like the woman at the gate.

"… Yes," she answered after a moment. "It would be… safer."

There was period of strained silence.

"Why are you here?" she asked after a hesitant pause. "Trav-uh-ler? Your clothes-"

(-_Tell me who are you people what have you done TELL ME-?)_

She left the sentence hanging, interlacing her fingers on the box and staring down at them. Vexen scoffed quietly, looking away to straighten his glove.

"I'm looking for two people," he said, pausing to take a sip of water. "Three or four, now that I think about it." The woman was now staring at him with interest. Such a quiet little thing. "They should be dressed like me. Same coat and boots. All black." He arched a brow. "Have you seen anyone like that?"

She slowly shook her head, appearing genuinely apologetic. "I am sorry."

Vexen sighed. "Just as well. I'm not exactly looking forward to seeing most of them." He gathered up the wrappers of the abominable granola bars and stuffed them into his bag.

The women looked around nervously. She really didn't seem to know how to act around him. It was better that way. "Please," she said, bringing her hands together to start that repetitive twirling again. "That man in the picture… If you find him and I am not there…" Her thumbs stopped. She lifted a hand to scratch her cheek before abruptly bowing.

"I am sorry. My-name-is Sudo Miya-" She stopped, shaking her head. "-Miyako Sudo. I am looking for… my friend. His-name-is Masumi, and… he does not speak English very well. I am afraid. I have not seen him for weeks, and..." Miyako stopped, clenching her hands together until the knuckles were bloodless white cords poking through her skin. She seemed to stop breathing for several seconds. "What is your name?" she asked finally.

"… Vexen," he answered after a moment.

"Vexen," she repeated with a nod and a small smile. "If you find Masumi, and I am not there, say 'Miyako.' Please."

Vexen nodded slowly, not entirely committed to doing what she asked. In all likelihood, this Masumi was probably dead. "And if you find… any of the people I am looking for…"

She nodded with an uncertain smile. "I will say 'Vexen.'" She finished her granola bar.

"Yes," he murmured. He stood up. "Are we going now?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, reaching for her bag.

"Then hurry up," he said. "I'm not waiting around for you."

* * *

><p>They left the house minutes later, setting further into the heart of the village with their meager possessions strapped across their backs. Miyako kept her flashlight off, guided by memory and the light of the moon. Vexen was more cautious, sure to fill every nook and cranny of their surroundings with artificial light. He'd dealt with creatures of darkness many times before, and the last thing he wanted to do was give them a chance to surprise him.<p>

"What purpose do those serve?" Vexen muttered, waving his flashlight in the general direction of another one of those strange red lanterns. His legs still hurt, but he was having an easier time walking than before. "That's the third one I've seen. They're not very bright, bordering on useless if I say so myself. That light can't be natural."

Miyako began to open her mouth, reconsidered, then shrugged. Her manner of walking was more robotic than graceful, her arms flat against her sides, her back unnaturally straight with her head held high. It seemed her upper half didn't move at all while her skirt swayed with her legs. It was intriguing, if mildly unsettling. "I have seen four." She unconsciously tucked her thumb into her palm and extended all four of the fingers on her right hand. "There is prah-bub-ree-_lee_… more?"

"No doubt," he muttered. "Red as far as the eye can see..." Miyako turned her head to throw a look over her shoulder, her dark eyes burning holes into her face as she continued with her strange stiff walk, but didn't say a word. Not for a while, at least.

"Please," she murmured suddenly, "why are your friends here?"

_Not friends,_ he thought immediately. _Not most of them, anyway._ "None of your business," he said.

Miyako paused. After a while, she nodded shallowly. "I am sorry," she said, looking off distractedly into the remains of a building on their right. She slowed, twisting to reach into her bag and pull something out. It took a moment for Vexen to recognize the shadows in her hands as a pen and notepad. "Excuse me…"

Without waiting for any sort of response, she strode over to the ruins, leaving Vexen alone on the road. Incensed, he followed after her, his own stride maddeningly slower. Miyako didn't even seem to notice. She pulled out her tiny pocket flashlight and shone it into the darkness, leaning against a jutting pile of splintered boards and fallen beams that blocked her path. Without any sign of hesitation, she effortlessly hiked one leg over it, then the other, her skirt rising dangerously high before she climbed up onto the creaking floorboards.

"You're mad," he called from the edge of the road. "The place looks like it could collapse in on itself at any moment."

Miyako didn't respond, didn't even turn to look at him. She stepped further into the house and disappeared behind the broken wall, her staccato footsteps the only sign that she hadn't been devoured by the darkness. When she finally reappeared to join him on the road over half a minute later, she was staring intently at her notebook, scribbling feverishly across its surface. Before he could ask she flipped it over, allowing him to see what she had written.

"What possessed you to do that?" he grumbled, shifting his balance between his legs as he stared down at the incomprehensible mass of blurred ink she had scratched into the center of the page.

Miyako stared down at her feet, her eyes quickly roving back and forth as she looked for the words. "A boy…" she said finally. "A boy…" frustrated, she pointed over at the hole in the wall. "It… he…!"

"Never mind," Vexen growled with a dismissive flap of his hand. "You're obviously never going to get it anyway. What does that mean?" He tapped his index finger against the open page of the notepad.

Miyako's frown deepened before she rested the tip of her finger next to his. "This-" she pointed over to the ruined building, "—on the wall. It, it mean…" She clenched her hands at her sides before groaning in aggravation. "It is not comprete."

She stuffed her notepad back into her bag, her face scarlet. She continued on without a word, leaving Vexen flabbergasted and struggling to catch up.

* * *

><p>After several minutes of walking with only the trees as witness they came to a fork in the path. Seeing that the left path only led to the large tree from before, Vexen gestured to the right, to a winding path of stone stairs leading up to an elegant shrine. Miyako took a large step back, emphatically shaking her head.<p>

"No, no," she said, her wide eyes shining. How could she tell him, tell him that the men with torches had nearly caught her there when he barely listened to her as it was? She had spent hours hiding in the trees as they called out for her below, their droning voices only repeating "I won't let you go," until they had finally, _finally_ wandered off, leaving her trembling, covered with sap and reeking of her own urine. She had cried for several minutes afterwards, weeping like a little girl and just wanting to find Masumi so that they could go _home._ And even more than fear she felt shame, shame in knowing that if she was able she would have given up on Masumi right then and left. Gone back to their apartment and try to fill it as best she could by her lonesome and—

Miyako began to shake her head violently, each turn punctuated by another shaky step backwards. "I can not," she whispered fiercely, unknowingly wrapping her arms around her body. "I can _not!_ _Iie! _Not safe! Not safe!"

Vexen's eyes were just as wide as her own. Instead of becoming aggravated with her as she had expected he merely knotted his brow, confused. He took several steps closer to her, closing in on her as he questioningly raised his hands. "What are you-?"

And suddenly a living shadow crept up behind her and shoved the world's longest barrel of the world's largest pistol between Vexen's eyes.

Miyako tried to scream, couldn't, felt it die stillborn in her throat, and nearly fainted right there.

* * *

><p>"Pow," a voice whispered from the shadows.<p>

"Hello, Xigbar," Vexen said flatly.

"Top o' the mornin', Even old boy. You were so loud I could've shot you in the dark." Xigbar pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession, an affectionate smile stretching across his face beneath several days' worth of whiskers . Several strands of his hair had been pulled loose from the band holding them back, dangling limply across his forehead. Without moving the gun, he waved his stubble-coated chin in Miyako's direction. "Who's the chick?"

Scowling, Vexen batted the gun away. "Get that out of my face."

Xigbar's grin only widened, accentuating the sagging purple-blue bags beneath his remaining eye. "Fine, sheesh. 'S not like I've got problems that're ten times worse." He lowered the gun to his hip and allowed it to disappear in a rush of darkness. A weak gasp of surprise issued from Miyako's direction. "When did _you_ get here?"

"Less than a day ago," Vexen muttered bitterly. "_After_ being forced to chase your sorry hide through the forest for more than two days."

"Oh, boo-_hoo!_ I haven't _slept _in more than two days. You were probably sitting in your lab without a care in the world while I was fighting for my life. What happened to you? A few bruises, a couple cuts?"

Vexen's scowl deepened. "I've had a concussion and what was probably a fractured skull, I've nearly drowned, I've been attacked by a knife-wielding lunatic, lost a bit of blood and gained a limp because of it, was nearly thrown off a mountain, and was caught in the middle of an earthquake with _Axel_."

Xigbar paused, pursing his lips with false deliberation and raised eyebrows before bobbing his head back and forth in a condescending nod. "So you ran into psychobitch, too, huh?" Another patronizing nod. "Sucks, man. Sounds like quite a story," he said simply.

Vexen snorted, stomping off to the side and planting himself on a step. Xigbar turned his attention to Miyako, whose eyes had previously been darting back and forth between them and had now grown wide, her skin as white as salt.

"But seriously," he said to her, shoving an accusing finger into her shoulder hard enough to knock her off balance, "who're you?"

"She doesn't speak much General, Xigbar," Vexen called from his perch before she could respond, crossing his arms and lifting his foot onto his knee to form a crude 4 with his legs. "I ran into her a few hours ago. She's a native that's been trapped here for weeks."

"Weeks, huh?" Xigbar advanced on her, his grin now downright malicious. "Care to tell me how a twig like you managed to survive out here for so long, much less without runnin' into me?"

Miyako's lips parted in a stutter, her eyes wide. Xigbar stared her down before breaking out in a cackle and turning back to Vexen. "I like her," he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder for emphasis. "She's fun."

"I believe your lack of sleep is affecting what little judgment you had, Xigbar," Vexen muttered as he glared up at him from beneath his eyebrows.

"Believe whatever you want._ I_ say she's hilarious." He suddenly spun on his heels to face her, his arms exploding out over his head and his hands warping into claws as he shot up onto his toes. "_BOO!_"

Miyako gave a high-pitched yelp, very nearly tumbling backward only to catch herself at the last possible moment. Her cheeks were becoming so red that they were almost purple, her chest heaving as she stared at the Freeshooter with frightful bewilderment.

Vexen sighed and slapped his palm over his eyes. "Really, Xigbar, what do you hope to gain from torturing her?"

"Amusement, duh." Xigbar turned back toward the Academic as the last of his frenzied cackling subsided. "I've been stuck out here for nearly a week with nothing to do but wait on good ol' chickenshit to make an appearance and put a bullet between his eyes. I've gotten maybe ten hours of sleep and am almost out of food. If not for the river I would be dead of thirst right now." His grin melted into a full-faced scowl. "Simply put, I am _not_ a happy camper, and I _will _make sure that _he_ knows that when I find him."

"By all means," Vexen muttered, sweeping his hand out before him in a gesture of offering, "but keep him alive. You know Xemnas."

"Yeah, yeah. Fuckin' Xemnas." Xigbar scratched at his barbed cheek and shook his head before twisting back to stare down at Miyako. She stiffened in anticipation.

"Does the lady have a name?" he asked her, his smile returning in an instant.

"M-Miyako." She drew a deep breath and forced herself not to break eye contact.

He jabbed a finger at the tip of her nose, causing her to blink cross-eyed. "I don't care what yer name is, sweetheart," he said, "from now on, I'm gonna call you Trigger."

Vexen just sighed, pinching the bit of skin between his eyebrows as he began to feel a bit of pressure there.

"Hey, Vex," Xigbar called over his shoulder, his greasy string-like ponytail sweeping back and forth across the nape of his neck. "Didn't you say that you were with Axel at some point? Was anybody else with you?"

"Just him and Lexaeus," Vexen said, lowering his hand. "I was separated from them through means I can't describe and found myself here. For all I know they're dead."

"Well shit. Guess I'm stuck with you, then." The Freeshooter whistled tunelessly, tapping his hand rhythmically against his thigh. "Say, could you do me a favor, Even old buddy?"

Vexen lifted a brow and scowled deeply. "_What_, dare I ask?"

Xigbar continued on, unaffected. "Could you stand guard here while I take a nap—y'know, act as watch? It's been forever since I last got me some shuteye." He pointed emphatically up at the shrine, his expression darkening in an instant. "I managed to chase XI into that place days ago and I can't get in. He's still there. Every time I look inside, he hasn't moved a muscle. He hasn't budged for nearly a week."

* * *

><p><em>Do you think you can go through with it once more?<em>

"Yes," he rasps, his voice hoarse from days without use. "Yes," a bit more labored now, "I can."

(_-How much of that-_)

"Please," he all but whimpers. "_Please,_ hurry."

(_-do you actually believe-?_)

_The trial is not without pain._

"I know," he whispers. "_I know._"

The Darkness is suddenly on him after hours of sitting idle. It presses into his nostrils, his throat, filling his lungs and making it impossible to breathe. When he finally opens his eyes it drifts forcefully into his sockets, drawing tears as it pushes inward and crushes and mangles and blinds him. Inky tendrils clasp onto his trembling limbs and force them down. He gives a low moan, not of pain—though there is plenty of that—but of fear. Sickening fear slinking into his stomach and bubbling into his throat and—

(_Don't leave me here all alone please don't leave me here all alone to die_)

-stinging pain burns all across his back and it's soon one continuous scream as blood drips down into the abyss leaking hot along his spine and he feels needles spread all across his body and he hears that same song over and over and over and over—

(_Forgive me forgive me but we must for the village for the village for the village for the village for the village not without twins_)

-what's left of his eyelids clench shut and suddenly there's more tears not of fear but of pain and he hears the staffs crashing against the floor and he hears the deafening report of the drums—

(_-I'll come back for you I promise-_)

-and the watery choking noises and the screams as he rips the blade all across the outsider's skin and the scream between his ears as he begins to jerk spastically curds of white foam leaking from his mouth—

(_-Hurry! He's-_)

-if he still had eyes they would roll back far into his head and they would clench shut as his body jerks spastically and he can't keep his teeth from clamping down on his tongue and ripping and tearing and drawing rivers of blood and he will wake up with a horrible headache and no memory of any of it and—

(_-having one of his fits, again-!_)

-and—

(I'LL KILL YOU YOU LYING SON OF A BITCH _I'M GLAD IT HURTS_)

-_and—_

The pain fades. That familiar warmth spreads all across his broken body and he weeps with relief.

_You are truly a fool if you really think I'd ever leave you._

Marluxia chokes back the last of the metallic foam as blood leaks from the corners of his mouth, his swollen tongue muffling his answer as the Darkness silently engulfs him.


	5. Chapter 4

**Urgh. Sorry for taking so very long on this one. There were a number of problems: 1. Started a new semester of college. 2. Working things out with a new beta (things that have yet to be resolved, due to time differences). 3. Lost my PC to a nasty virus and couldn't afford to fix it for nearly three months. But I'm here, and see, with a semi-lengthy update! Many thanks to all my readers and special thanks to all my reviewers. You guys are awesome.**

* * *

><p><em>I'm dead,<em> Axel thought, _I'm dead_ _and it's all thanks to that tree-fucking son of a bitch Marluxia and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry, Isa. I tried. I really did. I tried and I ended up dying the most anticlimactic death ever conceived short of dying in your sleep. No explosion of glory for me, no sir, just got munched up by the planet. And you know what, Isa? So far, being dead _sucks.

But, even as he lay there deep within the fog, Axel knew that wasn't true. For one thing, he felt like he had just been tossed into a dryer that had been running on its last legs, maybe with a few bricks thrown in after him for good measure—

—_I bet it was _Marluxia _that tossed me in that sadistic grinning chucklefuck oh I'll wipe that stupid grin off his face _real_ good—_

—sealed in tight and thrown around for a couple of hours until his bones had been reduced to jagged splinters and his flesh to bruised jelly. And the afterlife was supposed to be painless, wasn't it?

_Oh please. You're a Nobody. The Powers That Be have declared that Nobody's aren't important enough for any sort of life after death. It's just poof, and you're gone. Dead. Expired. No more. Besides, even if you _were_ able to get into the afterlife, kiddo, I have my doubts that it would be all fluffy white clouds and angels strumming their harps._

"All fire and brimstone for _you_, buddy," Axel whispered, vaguely aware that his voice had a small echo, and a tiny smile stretched painfully across his face. "But you always liked the heat, didn'tcha?"

At that he reached deep inside himself and called out for his element, feeling it course down his arms, burn into his fingertips, and ignite with a small _whump_ at the tips of his fingers.

Axel opened his eyes. It wasn't easy. He blinked a couple of times to let them adjust, only to realize that there was nothing for him to see in the first place. Even with the flames dancing excitedly around his fingers he couldn't see shit. Nothing but dark, nothing but shadows, nothing but nothing.

"Great_,_" he grumbled, pulling himself up into a skewed sitting position and attempting to have another look around. Still black as far as the eye could see, but he found that he was sitting on what appeared to be smooth brown stone. He tapped his gloved knuckles against it. Yup, it was stone.

Nothing was bleeding, nothing was broken. He could move his limbs alright, and that was what was important. He still felt like he had been chewed up and spat out, though. The was a large tear in the front of his coat—_Marluxia you fuck this was my _favorite_ coat—_large enough for him to fall through if he wasn't careful, and _that_ was quite the problem. He stared at the hole with contempt, extinguishing one hand to run his fingers along the ragged edges.

Gritting his teeth, Axel pulled himself to his knees before shakily pushing himself onto his feet. He stumbled, caught himself. His clattering footsteps echoed hollowly all around him.

A freezing draft ruffled the tattered remains of his coat. Cursing, he pulled the pieces tight, chills running down his spine as he called forth another flame. It flickered in the wind as he lifted his hand, squinting. The draft had to have been coming from _somewhere._

Axel took a cautious step forward, one hand keeping an iron grip on his coat as he heard another sharp echo, and shook his head. Really, now. If he was going to stop every time he heard the slightest little noise, he would die of dehydration before he so much as ran into a wall. With that he charged forward, mouth set in a firm line, fire crackling in his hand—

—and nearly tumbled headfirst off of a cliff. At the last second he managed to twist and throw himself onto his side, flames dancing in wild arcs and pebbles flying everywhere as he landed painfully with a grunt_._ He rolled back with a yelp, breath coming and going in harsh little gasps. Axel groaned, pulling himself up into a sitting position and slapping his hands over his eyes. "Really, Lea," he forced through his teeth, "_really? _No smarter than a damn lemming, you-" He stopped, grinding his teeth together. Pebbles bounced all around him, clicking sharply in his ears. He reached blindly into the dark and seized one, flinging it out in front of him with a snarl. It flew over the edge without a sound.

With another deep breath, Axel closed his eyes. He lifted both hands and ran them through his matted hair. His head felt hot. His face was sticky with sweat, and more of it was beginning to leak out of his armpits. It felt as if cinderblocks had been chained to each of his limbs. The pain in his body was gradually diminishing, but only just that—gradually. His pulse pounded between his ears. Beneath that, a little flare of thought whispered meekly in his mind. Forgetting something, he had to be forgetting somethi—

"Oh shit, Lexaeus," he whispered. Axel leapt to his feet and created another flame, this one larger and brighter than the last. It spat in his palm, smoke drifting upward as the center of his glove caught. He hardly noticed. "Lexaeus!" he called, "Lexaeus!" Panic tried to spark in the back of his mind only to hit a dead circuit. He supposed he should have been worried—not for the Silent Hero's life but for his own—but all he could feel was muted rage, a quasi-sense of anger. It all went back to Marluxia; Marluxia for nearly killing Isa, Marluxia for pulling him into this place, Marluxia for all those knowing little smirks and airy, condescending laughs. _Marluxia_.

Axel came to a sudden stop, his toes dangling precariously over an extension of the cliff's edge. He shuffled back, the motion disturbing some gravel and sending it over into the black. Just as he was about to turn, he heard the pebbles clicking below. The sound was muffled, but very real.

At that moment, a low groan floated up from the darkness, impossibly loud amidst the stillness. Axel inhaled sharply, his eyes wide. He leaned forward, looking down deep into the shadows. "… Lexaeus?" he called, almost meekly.

A few seconds passed before he was answered with another pitiful groan, this one louder than before.

Axel hunkered down into a crouch, putting all his weight on his free hand before leaning forward and lowering the flame, searching. Finding nothing, he moved a few feet to the right and repeated the process. Here he could see the faint outlines of a stone outcropping. Lexaeus was lying face down in a crumpled heap some ten feet below him, not moving.

"Lexaeus," he called.

Lexaeus didn't answer, didn't even budge.

After a moment's hesitation and a fruitless attempt to summon a corridor, Axel turned, lowering himself onto the cliff face. The flame drifted away from his hand and split into two, one half floating upward to the side of his face and the other moving down to sit by his feet.

With a deep breath, Axel started to descend. _Mountain climbing_, he thought, staring down to monitor his feet. _It's just like mountain climbing. Nothing to worry about except if the harness is going to crush your balls._A piece of the cliff broke off beneath his foot, shattering below him as he scrambled for another foothold. He paused, panting.

It was a bit easier after that. He reached for another hole in the cliff, tested it, gave it his full weight. Nothing broke like he expected it to, but more than once did he find himself tensing up when he thought his weight was too much.

When he was maybe a foot from the bottom he hopped down, his boots striking the ground and producing another sharp echo. Still panting, he made his way over to Lexaeus, flames dancing around his head in slow circles.

The Silent Hero was still lying prone, body twisted, facedown. "Lexaeus," he said, nudging his side with his boot.

Lexaeus shifted slightly with another quiet groan. "Arm," he rasped, "landed on my arm." He coughed.

Axel bent down and tried to flip him over. "Lex," he grumbled, "you're gonna have to help me out here. I can't move a mountain."

For a moment, Lexaeus didn't move, couldn't. He was dead weight at his feet. Then he managed to push up with his left arm—his good arm. He turned his head, blinking dazedly, and for the first time Axel was able to see his face. There appeared to be a hole in his forehead. Blood was pouring out of it, coating his left eye. Axel manipulated one of the flames to get a better look. There was a jagged piece of rock poking out just above the Silent Hero's eyebrow.

And just like that, Lexaeus crumpled to the ground. Axel sighed. "Lex, c'mon, man. One more time." He slid both of his hands under his torso and gave another push. Lexaeus slowly pushed himself up again. "_There_ we go, big guy." With his help Axel managed to flip him onto his back. He looked down at his damaged arm and winced.

It looked painful, he'd give him that. Lexaeus's arm looked more like a bare tree branch than an actual arm, zig-zagging back and forth with multiple breaks. His hand had been outright _crushed. _It was twisted a good 90 degrees on a broken wrist. The fingers were splayed out in all directions, the thumb bent backwards. It reminded him of the stick drawings Lea had done as a kid.

"Where's your pack?" Axel asked tonelessly. There had to be at least a potion in there.

Lexaeus wheezed and grit his teeth, the left side of his face coated in grimy black. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed above his head. Axel squinted into the darkness. A black lump was scarcely visible at the very edge of the available light. In the dark it looked like an ancient monster slithering out of the deep.

Axel walked over to it none too quickly, leaving Lexaeus alone in pitch blackness. Just as he bent to grab it, his foot sloshed in water. Axel blinked, staring down at his boot. Even in the light the water was amazingly transparent. And before he knew it he noticed the lake, a shapeless mass as black as charcoal with shimmering orange and white specks closer to the fire. It stretched out as far as he could see, completely soundless. He dropped to one knee, soaking his pant leg, suddenly extremely thirsty. He gulped down three handfuls and sighed, the water sweet on his tongue. Axel scooped the pack up and turned. "Hey, Lex! There's wa-!"

Something brushed against his foot. He jerked backwards, his head snapping back to face the water.

Nothing there.

No, that wasn't right. Pebbles were rolling along the bottom. The surface broke into a small V and he heard the gentle sound of rolling water. He lowered the flame to get a better look. A shape slowly took form in the water, looking a bit like a featureless, oversized tadpole—about the size of a housecat. When he got too close the creature darted off with a loud splash, its tail end flitting rapidly back and forth before it finally came to a stop in the dark part of the lake. It glowed faintly for a few seconds, growing dimmer and dimmer before finally returning to its original transparency.

Another splash, this time from a different direction. Then another. Pretty soon he could hardly hear himself think.

Axel stood dumbfounded at the edge of the water, eyes wide. "Lexaeus," he called, staring out at the lake, "I think we'd best skedaddle…"

* * *

><p>Vexen glared up at the shrine before him, sniffing contemptuously as he crossed his arms. "Have you at least tried to use your powers to manipulate the doors, Xigbar?" he asked.<p>

"You bet your skinny ass I've tried. I couldn't get it to do anything. I tried crushing them, shooting them, kicking them—nothing. They're perfectly fine. And not just the doors. The walls and even the roof are as sturdy as blast doors." He smiled thinly and rubbed his hands together. "Oh how much I would pay to talk to the guy that designed this place. Had to've been an architectural genius. I could've learned a thing or two." His hands dropped to his sides and his smile faded. "As far as I can tell there isn't even a lock."

"But there's a keyhole right there," Vexen said, pointing down at a hole in the center of the door.

"Hence my frustration. I've just been standing here for several days waiting for chickenshit to make a move." He tapped his chin. "He should still be there. Go ahead and take a look for yourself."

Vexen took a step forward, bending to see through the waist-high keyhole. It was an old-fashioned thing that had definitely seen better days, crafted out of tarnished brass. The Academic blinked, trying to make sense of what was inside.

There were two lights on either side of his vision, shining white with the brilliance of new frost. When things finally came into focus he realized that they were candles, somehow continuing to burn bright even after all this time. Other than that it was black as pitch. Between the two candles sat what he assumed to be Marluxia, a huddled shape kneeling some feet from the doors, still as could be. His back was turned and his shoulders were tucked, his head down and his hood up, the toes of his boots flattened against the floorboards.

"Looks like a corpse, doesn't he?" Xigbar called from behind him.

"If we were only so lucky," Vexen said with a small frown, rising and turning to face him. "You are certain he hasn't moved?"

"A hundred percent."

"Hmph." Vexen set his elbow on his wrist and lightly tapped his chin, pondering.

Xigbar took a step forward, pointing up at the roof. "There's a hole up there. About the size of a dinner plate. I can't quite fit through. I tried getting a bullet through there, to shoot the doors or something from the inside, but my gun jammed up. Funny; it works perfectly fine out here." He turned to smile at Miyako, who up until now had been eyeing them nervously without a word.

"What about you, Trigger?" he asked, his smile widening when she stiffened. "Think you can fit through?"

"I… I do not understand…" she said meekly.

"Of course you don't." He lifted his hand and beckoned her forward with a wave. She took two short steps after a lengthy moment of hesitation and stopped, unconsciously lacing her fingers together. Xigbar chuckled. "Closer, kiddo."

Miyako lowered her head and pulled a deep breath into her lungs, held it, let it go slowly. She walked until she was mere inches from Xigbar, looking up at him with what she hoped was a blank face.

She jumped when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and turned to stand at her side, pointing up at the roof of the shrine. "You—" he pointed to her, specifically at her chest, with an accompanying stare, "—go—" he made a little walking motion with two fingers, "—up—" he pointed to the sky, "—there." He pointed back at the roof. "Un-der-_stand_?"

Miyako's face darkened, and she fought the urge to shove him off. She didn't want to know what would happen if she made him angry. "I understand."

"Good," he chirped, and shoved her forward unceremoniously. She gasped, catching herself just before she fell to all fours. He laughed and slapped her on the back. "Go on, Trigger. I'll give ya a boost." He marched forward, taking her with him.

Vexen stepped aside as Xigbar came to a stop at the shrine, watching as he dropped to one knee and formed a step with interlaced fingers. "Come on, Trigger. I promise I don't bite." The Freeshooter grinned lewdly. "Much."

Miyako placed a foot on his hand and pushed, reaching out for the eaves. She grabbed on and pulled up with a surprising lack of effort. Xigbar shifted to where her feet rested on his shoulders, shooting Vexen a wink before unashamedly staring up her skirt. "Blue's a good color for you, Trigger," he said.

Vexen just sighed, slapping his hand over his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose. When he opened his eyes again to look out through splayed fingers, Miyako was on top of the roof, crawling out of his sight.

Xigbar stepped back, turning to face him with a deliberate smile. "You know, that those librarian types are into some kinky stuff."

"… You are hopelessly depraved."

"And proud of it, too."

* * *

><p>Miyako crawled across the slanted roof, careful to keep her balance. The old shingles were rough on her hands and rougher on her legs. She had a brief flashback to her childhood of climbing trees to get to her own roof. This one was flatter, higher up.<p>

"You okay, Trigger?" Xigbar—that _was_ his name, wasn't it? —called up from the ground.

"Yes," she answered, hoping that that was the correct response. He shouted something back. She couldn't understand it, but knew at once that she was better off not knowing when Vexen gave a disgusted sigh.

Miyako shuffled over to the hole in the roof. It was ragged and not very wide, but she thought she could fit as long as she kept her legs close together. The real problem was the landing. She peeked inside and could only make out faint outlines, but the light was bright enough for her to see that the floor was clear. She wasn't too high off the ground—the building was only just taller than Vexen—but one wrong move, one unfortunate twist, and she would receive a broken leg, a shattered ankle, or worse. Miyako swallowed, breathing hard through her nose. The only thing she could possibly think of that could break her fall was a pile of leaves, but the time and effort it would take to make a pile that large was not something they could afford.

Miyako shook her head. It was best not to dwell on it, to just take action and hope for the best. The distance of the fall wasn't that great, anyway. It wasn't like it would kill her, unless she somehow managed to land on her head. They'd wanted her to open the door, and she was not exactly in a position to refuse.

The roof creaked and bellowed as she moved closer to the hole. She froze, fearful that it would collapse under her, but nothing happened after several seconds of tense silence. She sighed, swinging her legs out from under her and poking her feet through. She slunk lower and lower until only her upper half was keeping her from falling, her legs dangling freely. She lowered her body some more, the sides of the hole digging savagely into her hands as she directed a final look down, and let go.

In an instant she realized that she had made a mistake. She cried out in pain as her ankle folded beneath her against the floor, her shoe slipping off, and only a split-second adrenaline-fueled twist of her body saved her from a broken leg.

Miyako landed on her back with a crash, the breath knocked from her lungs, her mouth open and her eyes wide and glassy with unshed tears. She heard someone shouting behind her, muffled by the wooden doors, and in the haze of pained disbelief she couldn't make out which one of them it was. Then she heard nervous laughter, and knew it was Xigbar.

"Ho-lee shit." There was a creaking noise as he pushed away from the door. "Even, I think she just got herself killed."

Miyako's arm shot up and she gave an aimless wave. "Okay," she rasped, coughing as she finally caught her breath. It wasn't even remotely true, but she definitely wasn't dead. (That _was _what "kill" meant, right?)

"You took quite a spill there, Trigger," Xigbar said. Miyako's brow twisted as she tried to focus on making sense of that instead of the pain. What would taking pills have to do with this? Perhaps they had medicine that would relieve the pain? "How's your leg?"

That, she understood. Miyako pulled herself up clumsily, placing her weight on her hands. She stared hesitantly down at her feet. Her left ankle throbbed, but her foot was sitting upright. It didn't _appear_to be broken, at the very least. She tried to move it, to bend it back towards her face. The pain was sharp and instantaneous, but it moved. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sprained, then," she uttered in her native tongue.

"What was that?" It was Vexen this time. Judging by the volume of his voice he had shoved Xigbar out of the way to get a look.

She flapped her hand in his direction, a gesture that simultaneously meant _it's nothing_ and _please, no more questions._ Nine times out of ten it worked.

This was not one of those times. She supposed she should have expected as much from him. "In what manner did you land? Did you hit your head? Can you move your legs? Can you move your feet?" Miyako nodded and hoped that it was enough. It seemed to be, as there was another series of creaks as the two switched places.

Miyako flipped onto her knees and squinted dizzily through a cloud of dust. It was dark in here, but not as much as she had initially feared. There was a man huddled in front of her before an altar, his back facing her and his legs folded beneath his body, but she saw enough to realize that he was dressed the same as Vexen and Xigbar. She crawled over to his side, tried to pull herself to her feet, couldn't. The man was asleep, the white candlelight illuminating his face. His eyes moved feverishly beneath his eyelids and his breathing was slow and deep. There was a dimple between his brows—a think line, her mother used to call it. She noticed with slight horror that black liquid was leaking from the corners of his blue lips. The hood of his coat was pulled up, but only far enough to cover part of his forehead.

"I'd stay away from him if I were you," Xigbar said behind her.

Miyako turned and reached out for a wall. In the dim candlelight she could see her fingers poking through symmetrical square holes, curling, gripping. When she finally managed to pull herself to her shaking, unsteady feet, she realized that it wasn't the wall. It almost looked like it had once been the frame for a paper door, the paper having either been stripped off or rotted away. Miyako grasped it tighter, following the frame with her fingers, limping, almost hopping. In just a stocking her left foot felt cold.

She finally reached the door, placing her weight against it as she searched with her fingers. A latch, a bar, anything would do. There were two strips of paper slapped messily across the crack between the doors; perfect, stark white rectangles the length of her forearm. Something was written on them, but she couldn't make it out in the dark. Her fingers brushed over the keyhole, and she frowned. Of course; the man in front of the altar had to have had a key. Anxiety curdled in her stomach at the thought of going through his pockets, at the thought of waking him up.

Miyako pulled in a breath and stood tall.

She traversed back, the exertion nearly causing her to collapse. The wooden frame creaked and rasped under her weight, but managed to hold. She saw the faint outline of her shoe in the corner before she lowered herself to her knees as gently as she could. It hurt.

Miyako slowed her breathing, closed her eyes and opened them again. The man was perfectly still. She slowly extended her arm, her fingers prodding his nearest hip pocket. It was empty. Her anxiety peaking, Miyako cautiously searched his other pocket. Something crackled inside. She frowned, pulling it out.

It was a crumpled piece of paper, shoved haphazardly into his coat. Miyako flattened it against her palm, straightened it with her thumb as she held it up into the light.

The candlelight colored the paper a sickly yellow, dark ink standing out in the center. The word _protect _was scrawled across it in messy _kanji_, written with a frantic hand. She blinked, flipped it over when she noticed that something else was written on the back, its outline visible through the thin paper.

_seal _it read.

Miyako's frown deepened, a think line of her own forming in the center of her brow. It couldn't be...

"Did you die in there, Trigger?"

Miyako didn't answer, reaching out to go through the man's pockets a final time. She found nothing. She bit her lip, staring at the flickering candles as she held the strip of paper out before her.

She'd heard about the talismans, dismissed them as nonsense. A strip of paper could have no power. It was just paper and ink, and that was that. Magic belonged in legend and folklore; reality was what you could touch, what you could see.

And yet she was holding this, seeing it, touching it.

Miyako's definition of reality had been under heavy scrutiny for the past several days. She'd _seen_ the mythical Crimson Butterflies, she'd _seen_ the men with the torches, she'd _seen_Xigbar dismiss that gun into thin air, and yet she could hardly believe it all. She'd heard the ringing of the Butterflies, the calls of the wandering dead, the rush of air as the gun dissipated into nothing. She'd touched the walls, walked across the soil, felt the hunger pangs, hid amongst the trees and sobbed into her very real hands and followed the boy in yellow and the woman in blue when this village was supposed to be long abandoned and searched _and searched until-_

Until what?

Until _what?_

Miyako buried her face in her hands and _breathed_, her eyes hot. "Masumi," she whispered brokenly. "Masumi."

Masumi.

Masumi was real. She could see him. She could run her fingers over his face without fear of him disappearing, without fear of him falling to dust beneath her fingers and floating away into nothing. She could hear him laugh, hear him whisper in her ear in the dark, hear him sigh as he ran his fingers through her hair. She could taste his lips on hers. She could feel the tip of his tongue running along her earlobe, could feel his teeth graze along her neck, could feel his deep reverberating chuckle tremble in her chest.

Masumi.

_Masumi._

Miyako yanked the candle from its stand and pulled herself up. She couldn't feel the wax burning her skin, could hardly notice it hissing and sizzling as it hit the floor by her feet. She weaved through the dark until she came upon the door, her injury forgotten. She dimly noted that the writing on the door matched the writing on the crumpled paper crushed in her palm before touching the flame to the corner of the topmost talisman.

Miyako watched, expressionless, as the paper caught. It popped and crackled as the flames licked away at it, ashes scattering to rest at her feet. She coughed, her nose burning and her eyes watering.

She heard Vexen—it had to have been Vexen—make a surprised noise, heard his harried footsteps as he shuffled away from the door. The wood creaked, warping and bubbling like hot tar beneath the flames. The glowing fire popped and burst into a sudden shrieking white-hot brilliance, smoke boiling off of the wood in dark red curls. Miyako scrambled backwards as the smoke engulfed her, crossing her hands over her face as it became harder to breathe. She teetered on her injured ankle and crashed to the floor with a shout.

In the approximate three seconds it took Xigbar to burst through the charred remains of the doors and scoop her up, Miyako felt a memory snag at her thoughts—a real accomplishment, considering she could hardly pin a solid thought in place from within this world of smoke and darkness. She heard her eldest brother call out for her—

(—_Miyako hurry the house is on fire!_—)

—felt him crush her tiny wrist in his massive hand in a bout of desperation, drag her too-thin body out of the heat and into the cool of the night. For a moment Keiichi was holding her close, pressing her ten-year-old self against his heaving chest to shield her from the sight. In the next it was Xigbar, holding her up and trying to keep her balanced.

"You okay, kid?" he asked roughly, his voice hoarse. The smoke had to have been getting to him.

"Okay," she muttered, gasping.

"I owe ya one." With that he directed her to a wall, leaving her to wander off into the darkness of the shrine.

Vexen inched through the hole in the wall with a deep grimace, his nose wrinkled in disgust as he ducked his head below the archway. Without a word he lifted the neck of his coat to cover his nose. "You couldn't have found a better solution than to burn it down?" He eyed a charred piece of wood with contempt, kicking it to the side.

Xigbar grunted from exertion in the dark. There was a rustling of cloth. He stepped out of the shadows with some difficulty, the unconscious man thrown boneless over one of his scrawny shoulders. "Hey, she did it, didn't she? So shaddup and be glad that we got him."

Vexen stared at him with clinical alertness, taking in everything he saw, his eyes bright in the dark. "Does he have a pulse? Is he breathing? He can't be dead if he's still here."

"Slow breathing. Slow pulse. Still alive and kicking, so to speak."

Vexen moved forward, his footsteps loud and heavy. Miyako shuffled out of his way and faked an interest in her hands. "Put him down. I'm going to take a look at his leg. Which one was it, again?"

"The right." Xigbar dropped him unceremoniously onto his back. He fell as dead weight, much like a sack of potatoes, dust billowing up all around him. Highly audible amidst the stillness there came a slight hitch in his breath, another think-line forming on his brow and the corner of his mouth turning down in a small grimace.

"Good to know you felt that," Xigbar said to him.

Vexen dropped to one knee and rolled up the man's right pant leg. Miyako inched forward, peering down between their shoulders. After a few heavy seconds Vexen made a small_hmph_, pulling the pant leg back down. He lifted his head and stared at Xigbar in silent conversation. After a moment they both shook their heads.

"No swelling, no contusions, no scars, no obvious breaks." A pause. "It seems that Saïx was correct." Vexen sighed and shook his head again, frustrated, but his eyes were alight with something that Miyako couldn't name. After a moment she concluded that it was a spark of intrigue.

"How is the little lunatic, anyhow?" Xigbar's voice had a playful tone, but his mind was obviously elsewhere.

"When I left he could hardly walk," Vexen said morosely, scowling down at the unconscious man. He groaned, rubbing his eyes. "It just doesn't make any sense!"

"I could break his leg again so we could see what happens. Y'know, for science."

"Feel free. Just know that you're carrying him." Vexen leaned down to inspect the man's face, frowning as he parted his lips with the tips of his fingers. "He's bitten his tongue." A grimace, a hesitant prod at his gums. "Rather hard. And recently, too. There's a small amount of blood pooling at the back of his throat. The only time I've ever seen it this severe was in a seizure victi-"

Vexen stopped suddenly, his eyes widening and narrowing in the space of a second.

"What's the matter?" Xigbar asked, leaning forward to get a better look. Miyako did the same, furrowing her brow.

"His neck," Vexen said breathlessly. "_Look _at it." He pulled the cloth away to reveal a web of bruises-pinks and reds and blues and purples and yellows and blacks-splayed across the man's throat like fingers. Beneath it all was a faint red glow, looking like a neon light splashed with grimy paint. Miyako gasped, her hand flying to her lips before she even realized what she was doing.

"Well shit," Xigbar said absently, prodding at the unconscious man with his toe. "Looks like someone beat me to it."

"This is..." Vexen blinked, at a loss for words. "With bruising that severe, he should be _dead._"

"What's the matter_—_disappointed?" Xigbar gave a smile, cold and calculating. "I'm more concerned about the fact that he's lit up like a glowstick. Last I checked, that wasn't normal." There was a pause. "I'm _not _carrying him. I don't care what you say, you're taller and have more upper-body strength_—_I've seen you swing that shield around like it was a piece of goddamned cardboard."

Miyako turned away, placing her hand over her neck as she felt her throat tighten. "Away," she mumbled, "I go away."

"Aww, leaving us already, Trigger?" Xigbar slapped her on the shoulder. "And it was just getting fun!"

"Masumi," she said, inching away from him, "I find Masumi."

"You find _what?_"

"Masumi is a man that she's looking for," Vexen said without looking up, a critical eye cast on the bruises. As he shrugged off his pack and shuffled through it, Miyako felt a small pang of gratitude for him. Explaining it herself would have been one long exercise in humility that she doubted she could handle. He pulled out a notebook and scribbled something down. "He disappeared in this area several weeks ago."

"I go," she repeated, hoping that she sounded assertive. "I _go._"

"All right, all right, geez," Xigbar grumbled. "Don't get your frilly panties in a twist." Vexen closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and released a long-suffering sigh through his nose.

Miyako didn't wait around for any sort of goodbye, knew that with these two it would be unlikely to have anything of the sort. She recovered her shoe_—_a feat in itself_—_and stumbled out of the shrine. She was grateful for the stinging cold air on her face and in her lungs. It was a touch of reality amidst the unnatural, bad-dream scenarios that had made up her last several days.

She stumbled down the stairs and disappeared into a blanket of chilly, fine-grained fog. Masumi was the only thing on her mind, and it would remain that way for the next several hours, until she would eventually cross paths with the pink-haired man.


	6. Chapter 5

**Sorry about taking so long on this update. The next one will be out much more quickly, I promise.**

**Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. You guys inspire me. :)**

**And special thanks to The Red Kunoichi for betaing this chapter. Lord knows the first draft was rough as hell.**

* * *

><p>Vexen and Xigbar left the shrine minutes later, stepping out of the relative warmth of the building into the bone-chilling dampness of the night. Marluxia was tossed over the latter's shoulder, his weight lessened considerably through the careful manipulation of gravity. He groaned lightly in his sleep. Xigbar shifted irritably, and he went silent.<p>

"I feel like I'm about to pass out," the Freeshooter muttered, slumping just _slightly_-which meant that he was probably telling the truth. Any more and he would have been exaggerating for the sake of trying the Academic's patience.

Vexen stared up at the sky with a frown. It was overcast. Curious-it had been clear just a few minutes ago. "I know a safe place. Come along."

"And down those fuckin' stairs again. These people ever heard of a ramp?"

The mist grew thicker the further they went down, engulfing and blinding the Academic. He heard Xigbar's grunts, his quick staccato footsteps, behind him. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and turned, a few seconds passed before the Freeshooter stumbled out of the rolling fog and into his sight. Xigbar was breathing a little more heavily than usual, but he nodded, wordlessly commanding him to continue walking.

"He's empty, y'know," Xigbar said a few seconds later as they crossed the tiny trickle that remained of the river in this part of the village. "I can't sense a thing. Just an empty husk."

Vexen quirked a brow, looking over his shoulder at Marluxia's sleeping face, pausing. "Are you quite sure?" he asked finally.

"Yeah. Not so much as a drop of mana."

Vexen hesitated, almost came to a halt, but continued on, saying nothing. Now was hardly the time for investigation.

They crossed the main road and took a hard right, stopping just outside the building Miyako had been living in for the past several days. Vexen reached for the door, stopping when Xigbar tapped his shoulder.

"Look," the Freeshooter said, pointing further down the road. Vexen turned, searching.

Just at the edge of his fogged visibility, Miyako stood in profile, nervously bringing her hands to her chest as she considered the road before her. She was a shadow, a crude ink sketch etched onto the whitest of paper. Sensing them, she turned, starting when they made eye contact. After a moment of heavy, choked silence, she lifted a hand and waved at them, unsure, her tiny flashlight bobbing in her other hand.

Vexen did nothing. Xigbar raised his hand and gave a small wave back.

To Vexen's muted surprise, she smiled at them, nodded. Throwing a final look over her shoulder, Miyako continued down the road, the fog swallowing her up. A stripe of light from her flashlight was all that remained, bobbing and cutting into the curls of the mist, and in a moment that, too, vanished from his sight as her footsteps grew silent and she disappeared completely.

"She doesn't stand a chance without us," Xigbar said matter-of-factly.

"She's lasted this long on her own, Xigbar," Vexen said. "I'm certain she can manage." He turned, pulling the door open with an ear-splitting creak and walking inside. "Why do you even care?"

Xigbar shrugged, stepping in after him. "I dunno. Chivalric code?"

* * *

><p>It was dark.<p>

It was dark and he couldn't see shit.

And supporting an injured man that had to outweigh him by _at least_ two hundred pounds through miles upon miles of underground tunnels was _not _doing anything to better his mood. The fact that the tunnels were just _barely_wide enough to allow both of them through was really just the piss-soaked cherry on top of this shit sundae.

"Left," Lexaeus said in the dark above him. "Left goes further up."

… Although, Axel supposed that the man had his uses. "Any idea how much longer we got to go?" he asked.

"No." He said it so quickly and with such certainty that Axel wanted to stop right there and drop him for it, see how well he did without him. A little white lie would have done wonders, given him a little morale boost, maybe. Anything was better than uncertainty, than a fucking _I don't know_. Axel grit his teeth, looking down to the flame at his feet, watching himself walk.

"You really know how to cheer a guy up," he managed.

"Hmph."

Axel sniffed derisively in return. Otherwise, it was dreadfully quiet.

And dark. So very dark. Hell, maybe this _was_the afterlife.

He tried not to think of what else could be down here with them. Shit, for all he knew, those things in the water could've been able to walk on land and follow after them.

Axel yelped as he stumbled over a rock in the path, taking Lexaeus down with him. The Silent Hero grunted in pain, suddenly twice as heavy. Axel's knee struck the ground with a crack. He grit his teeth, slowly pulling them both back up. "A little help would be nice, big guy."

Lexaeus said nothing, (of course), but grunted with exertion and shifted in the dark, lessening the weight on Axel's shoulders. Axel took a few more steps, finding it to be a little easier than before. Great. Just a few more miles of this and then things would be just fucking peachy. Damn, he wanted a drink. A nice stiff one. Beer, whiskey, whatever. Even some antifreeze sounded good right now.

Lexaeus suddenly made a strange sound, a sound that almost hinted at curiosity. Really, Axel wasn't sure. It wasn't like he had a lot to go by with Goliath here. "What's got you?" he asked.

"The path... It widens further ahead," Lexaeus rasped.

"Well shit, You don't need to tell me twice." Axel picked up speed, wondering if he was supposed to feel excited. After a while he came to the conclusion that just about anything would be better than this claustrophobic nightmare. Excitement it was. He smiled accordingly.

Bless the huge bastard, it did widen. Axel set Lexaeus down, rolling his shoulders with a pop. The sound echoed in the hollow. Dull white light was seeping in through the rock several yards above his head. He squinted, directing a fireball upward to get a better look. Holy shit, the place had to have been at least sixty feet from roof to floor.

Slumping, Axel called the fireball back down. Good luck trying to get Lexaeus to get them all the way up there in the condition he was in.

Something glinted silver in the dark just in front of him, catching his eye. He stalked over to it, leaving the Silent Hero with a single flame for light, just to show how much of a nice guy he was. He found himself standing before a dusty stone slab, draped with a faded white cloth and set out almost like a table, coming up to his hips. On top of it was an large dagger, curved at one end like a fishhook and shining like gold in the firelight. He nearly stumbled into a tall ornamental candle holder just next to it, cursing as he automatically reached out to righten it. After a moment of consideration, he lit the candle. It bloomed into an eye-searing white flame, sending up tendrils of thin red smoke. It drifted into his face and he retched at the smell. It was nauseating, almost like a corpse that had been left out in the sun too long or something. He coughed, collapsing against the slab.

He rose after a few seconds and caught his breath, absentmindedly dusting himself off.

Axel picked up the knife. It was heavier than it looked. There was a small ruby in the center of the hilt that he hadn't noticed before, set inside a crude butterfly-shaped indentation. He ran his fingers along the hook, closing them around the curve before abruptly setting it back down.

Isa had read all sorts of creepy shit when they were kids-books on serial murderers, witchcraft, divination, cannibalism, ritualistic sacrifice-the sort of stuff that would make a little old lady drop dead of a heart attack if she ever caught such a sweet-looking little boy like Isa reading them. And so raptly, too. There were times when he would just hole himself up in his room and read for hours while _normal_little boys like Lea were out playing baseball or daring each other to jump across chasms on their skateboards or something.

Staring down at the slab, down at the hooked knife, an image flashed in Axel's head. A woodcut-so clear and striking ever since that day Lea had finally caved to pressure and flipped through one of the books to find it staring up at him-a woodcut of a tall man looming over the corpse of young girl clad in bloodstained white, a dagger in one hand and her tiny heart in the other. Isa had seemed so excited-so _enthusiastic_-to describe it to him. His eyes were _alive_, his smile wide and his mouth going a mile a minute. Lea hadn't been sure what to do except _freak the fuck out_. They'd never been the same after that-still good friends, still practically brothers, but Isa became colder, more distant. He didn't read those kind of things in front of Lea anymore.

And the funny thing was, if Saїx had decided to pull one of those books out again and show it to him now, he wouldn't have even blinked. Hell, maybe he could take a page out of the original Six's book and study it with the cold eye that only the lack of a heart and a conscience could allow.

_Yeah. And maybe I'll start holing myself up in a lab and living on nothing but coffee and granola._

Even now, staring down at this thing, Axel felt the slightest pang of... was it supposed to be disgust? Outright repulsion? Either way, the air around him suddenly felt just a little colder. This slab... for all intents and purposes it _was_ the slab the girl's corpse had been on. At the forefront of his mind, with just a _little _help from his imagination, he pictured himself lifting up the cloth and staring down at a bloodstained hunk of rock once the dust cleared.

_Can blood really stain a rock? _he wondered, unconsciously running his fingers across the faded cloth. _Can't you just wash it or scrape it or whatever it is the hell you do to get that kind of stuff off?_

(_-you can bet your life that Isa would know something like-_)

The tips of his fingers brushed against the edge of the cloth. His breath hitched. His hands trembled momentarily. He was just barely aware of Lexaeus calling out for him somewhere in the dark behind him. He gripped it in his hands and pulled back, searching, searching for-!

The woman crashed into his side before he even knew what was happening. She moved with an inhuman speed, driving a knife straight through his clothes and into the flesh just above his hip. He screamed, crashing to the ground and instinctually sending up a barrage of fireballs. He saw her in a series of shapes bleached by the blinding light-her impossibly white, nearly translucent skin; her bizarre, tattered blue clothes; her manic grin and her pearly teeth; her bright yellow eyes and her tiny black pupils and her inky black hair and her-

(_-the glowing red mark on her neck am I really seeing that I can't_ really_ be _seeing_ that-?_)

And then-!

* * *

><p>Vexen clutched a finger in one hand and a wrist in the other, pulling up and sideways until he heard a satisfying snap. Marluxia made a noise in his throat and clenched his jaw, tensing. After several long moments he settled, exhaling loudly. Vexen dropped his hand to the floor and reached for his notepad, pulling his pen out from behind his ear.<p>

If a broken leg could be mended flawlessly in a matter of hours, just how quickly could the same be done with a broken finger?

Xigbar snored loudly in the corner, rolling over in his sleep. Vexen shot a look of agitation his way before returning his attention to the limp hand on the floor. He pressed the notebook against his lips and breathed, closing his eyes. Exhaustion was getting to him, but scientific observation proved a more pressing matter. Sleep could wait as long as there was data to be gathered.

Despite the notion, he thought briefly of Miyako, of her anxious smile and her nervous disposition, flighty and scared and not sure what to do with him, and frowned. Despite her innocent appearance, she didn't have much light left within her. She was still in possession of her heart, that much was certain. But it was quite the miracle that she had yet to be swallowed up by the Darkness. It was so thick here, so constant. He supposed that, in a way, her mere survival was something worthy of admiration, perhaps even a closer look. He wondered what her Nobody would be like. Her will was strong enough to produce one.

Vexen sighed. A tired body could fuel such bizarre thoughts.

* * *

><p>Miyako stumbled through the cemetery, gasping and clutching at her side. She'd lost a shoe back at the bridge and couldn't dare to retrieve it. Her heart raced in her chest. Her vision was a blurred mess. She ducked behind a headstone and tried not to cry, sharp twigs and dead leaves tearing through her stocking and cutting into the soles of her feet like needles.<p>

The men with the torches were making slow progress towards her, searching, searching, _searching_for her. One was now armed with a sickle. She tried not to think of what could be done with it. They were glowing an unearthly blue, nearly transparent, clearly not of this world, and the raw desperation in their cries and on their faces-it was-it was enough to-!

Miyako squeezed her eyes shut and choked back a sob. Stupid, she'd been so _stupid_! They had driven her into a corner-she had _allowed_them to. What could she do now? She turned to press her back against the headstone and curled into herself, shivering.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of them-the tall one with the staff. He caught sight of her and cried out, catching the attention of the others, and for just a moment she could swear her heart had stopped.

But no, it kept beating. It kept beating and the men were closing in after her.

Someone-anyone! Vexen, Xigbar-_anyone_!

Mother was right. She couldn't ever hope to do anything on her own. Always had to have the big strong men come and save her. She was just a scared, useless little girl, terrified of the dark and having to jump and jerk at every little sound. Yes, mother was right. She deserved this. She deserved to die, alone and scared and dirty. Masumi was dead. She couldn't go on deluding herself. He'd been dead for days and she'd been foolish enough to come out here in search of a corpse. Masumi was dead and she was about to-!

"My, my, what do we have here? You poor thing. You're shaking like a leaf."

The men with the torches suddenly grew silent. Miyako's eyes shot open, but she didn't dare look up. Now she was _sure _that her heart had stopped. That voice-that voice meant safety. But she couldn't keep an icy bolt from shooting up her spine.

"Hello? He-_llo_?" An agitated snort. "Don't tell me you're dead. Where's the fun in that?"

Tears began to pour out of her eyes. Every remaining shred of survival instinct she had told her not to look up, but she did.

The boy with the glowing yellow sash couldn't have been more than eleven years old. He was just small enough and the gravestone just wide enough for him to sit on with crossed legs above her. He grinned down at her with a flash of sharp white teeth, and though he had yet to give her a reason to see him as a threat, Miyako felt very much like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a starving predator every time he smiled like that.

He extended his hand to her, automatically causing her to flinch. In his palm was a small ripe plum, the same deep reddish-purple of a bruise.

"You look hungry," he said, that smile never stopping. He jerked his chin in her direction. "Care for a bite?"

* * *

><p>Marluxia whispered something and Vexen's eyes flew open. The Assassin was still asleep, likely unconscious, but his mouth was moving, his lips slowly forming words.<p>

"Oni..." he uttered lowly. "Oni... Oni... Oni..."

Vexen leaned forward, staring fixedly down at Marluxia's face. The movement beneath his eyelids was beginning to slow, coming to a stop as he pulled a breath in through his nose. He went completely still, completely silent, rigid as could be.

And then he _whimpered_.

Everything seemed to quicken after that. Marluxia made a gagging sound, halfway reaching for his throat only to drop his hand. Small indentations were beginning to form across his neck. The gagging grew to desperate choking noises as the indentations deepened. He began convulsing, sending Vexen flying back with alarm. Beneath his bruised eyelids his eyes began to move and move.

Xigbar started awake, looking over at him with half-asleep bewilderment. "What the _hell_is he-?"

He didn't have the chance to finish. He was too busy staring past Vexen.

And Vexen knew why. Oh yes, did he know why.

For a large box was sitting just behind him-the same box that had served as a breakfast table for he and Miyako just hours ago, he noted distantly.

And from inside that box, gripping onto his shoulder, small and cold and gray, was a hand.

* * *

><p>(-<em>stabbing won't stop stabbing she won't stop stabbing me<em>-)

And it stopped. There was a sudden hulking shadow over him, a crunch and a crash and a scream.

(-_she stopped but you're bleeding buddy yup you're bleeding bad oh you're so screeeewed_-)

"One potion left," Lexaeus said in the dark, scooping him up like a pile of rags. At least, he would've, if he hadn't immediately collapsed to his knees with a pained grunt.

"Hold still," he rumbled. Whether it was him living up to his title or an act of self-preservation, Lexaeus held up a bottle. "Hold still."

* * *

><p>The boy was clean, unusually so. His light brown <em>yukata<em>and bare feet didn't have so much as a speck of dirt on them. His hair, dark as ink, cascaded down his back in a thick, simple braid. It moved as he shook his head, the dark blue bruises on his throat standing out on his pale, pale skin.

"What's the matter, Miyako? Don't you trust me?" His smile took on a sugary quality, lost on her as he had _far _too many teeth, his bright yellow eyes peeking out at her from beneath his bangs. He shook his hand enticingly, returning her attention to the plum. "Go on. You don't want _me_to eat it, do you?"

Miyako clenched her jaw, focusing only on the plum as she slowly reached for it with a shaking hand. He dropped it gently in her palm, never taking his eyes off her. She clutched it in both hands and took her first trembling bite. A fresh wave of tears, born from sheer _relief_, stained her cheeks. They mixed with the juice on her chin as her bites became more frenzied. She choked back a sob as she swallowed.

"There," the boy said in an almost-_almost_-soothing tone. He patted her on the head, and for the first time in weeks, Miyako didn't feel the need to flinch. "You're safe now, see?"

* * *

><p>Vexen rushed forward with a shout, crashing into Marluxia before pulling himself jerkily to his feet. Xigbar was still sitting in the corner, frozen.<p>

The lid of the box peeled back seemingly of its own accord, crashing against the floorboards and kicking up dust. The hand slowly flattened against the floor as a dark shape seemed to _ooze _out from the darkness inside the box, and it took Vexen only a moment to realize that it was _hair_.

The mass of hair shifted, turned, _writhed_, and before long he was staring into the shriveled face of a middle-aged woman, her eyes shiny and milky-white with cataracts. Her jaw lowered as they made eye-contact, her face stretching in a silent scream as sharp clicking noises issued up from her throat.

"Well, don't just sit there!" Vexen shrieked at Xigbar, "_Do something_!"

That seemed to do it. The Freeshooter called up a pistol from the darkness and shot at her. She grunted, recoiling at each shot, but she continued shambling forward, her feet landing heavily against the floor.

Vexen took a step back, his blood running cold. At first he thought it to be his imagination, but it was unmistakable now. He heard it-he was _sure_he heard it-the ear-piercing squall of a crying infant. In seconds Xigbar was at his side, tense in a battle-ready stance.

The woman's hunched form came to a stop before Marluxia's prone body. She stared down at him with an almost puzzled expression, her hair brushing against his scrunched-up face. She lowered her hand, brushing her too-long, too-thin fingers against his forehead in what was almost a maternal gesture.

And, from somewhere deep within his catatonia, Marluxia _screamed_.

They both bolted out of the room, not daring to look back.

* * *

><p>The noise caught Miyako off guard, causing her to drop what was left of the plum into the dirt. It was a series of gunshots-faint but unmistakable-coming from the direction of the village. The boy made an interested sound, looking into the woods curiously.<p>

"Xigbar?" she whispered to herself. "Xigbar...?"

Then she heard the scream. It was a man-his voice hoarse and raw with terror-too deep to be Vexen or Xigbar.

_Masumi_, she thought immediately, and felt a fear greater than she had ever felt before quake within her body. _Please... Please, no..._

There was silence. Deafening silence.

Then, footsteps. Rushed, clumsy ones. A man's pained gasping.

"We have guests," the boy said with a cackle, and jumped down into a graceful crouch, grabbing what was left of the plum before tossing it into the trees.

* * *

><p>Xigbar wasn't sure how long they had been sitting here, crammed into the corner like a couple of sardines smooshed into an airtight can, but fuck if it didn't seem like forever.<p>

"You _idiot_," Vexen hissed from behind him. "Why didn't you keep shooting?"

"_Hey_!" Xigbar shot back in an equally venomous whisper, "At least I actually _did_ something! _You_ just stood there like a slack-jawed moron! And you _saw_ that she was just shrugging it off like a-like a-_fuck_!"

"Well," Vexen said impatiently, "go see if she's gone!"

"_Me_?" was all he could manage before he was sent sprawling into the dark with a well-placed kick. The door slammed shut behind him. "Son of a _bitch_!"

"Is she there?" Vexen called, voice muffled.

"... No," Xigbar answered after a moment, pulling himself to his feet and absently dusting himself off. It was quiet. Marluxia had stopped screaming a while ago. The woman's dark presence had disappeared.

Vexen slid the door open, stepping cautiously out into the main room. The door across from them-the door leading into the room they had just run out of-was shut tight. Funny, he distinctly remembered leaving it open.

Xigbar crossed the room, reaching out for it. It slid open with ease. He stepped inside, cautiously peering around the corner.

No creepy she-abomination. Thank the darkness. "All clear!"

Vexen crossed to him with a sigh of relief. "Good."

Xigbar sneered. "I oughta kick your bony ass for doing that t-"

He stopped as his sensitive ears picked up rapid, retreating footsteps, just outside the window. He was old, but he wasn't deaf. And it dawned on him. Slower than he would've liked to admit, he realized that-

* * *

><p>"Hello, Ceremony Master," the boy said to the pink-haired man-the man from the shrine, Miyako realized-his expression darkening as a malicious smirk stretched across his face. "Did you sleep well?"<p>

* * *

><p>-Marluxia was gone.<p> 


	7. Chapter 6

**Happy Valentine's, everyone. Here, have a longer chapter with actual ACTION and FATAL FRAME CHARACTERS. Shocking stuff, I know.**

**Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. You guys are amazing.**

* * *

><p>"No," was all the pink-haired man managed to get out before the boy took the first swing. The man flew back just as the knife sliced in an arc scant inches from his stomach, grunting and holding his side as he crashed into a tree. He was limping, struggling to stand glove on his right hand was missing, one of the fingers bent unnaturally. He raised his other arm, a misty shadow forming around his hand. With a flash and a sprinkle of bright red petals, he was suddenly holding the largest scythe Miyako had ever seen.<p>

Miyako couldn't even manage to feel surprised anymore.

She ducked back, as far away as she could. Her foot was raw and bleeding at this point, leaves pressing into her wounded heel. She barely noticed. Either the man was in more pain than she initially thought or he wasn't quite used to holding the scythe with his left hand, as his movements were clumsy, awkward. Each swing looked as if it was going to knock him to his feet. But he managed. Somehow, he managed.

The boy was having an easier time. He was quick on his feet, effortlessly dodging each attack and always sure to counter with a quick stab. And with the way he was smiling and pausing for each swing of the scythe, Miyako knew that he was just taunting the man at this point. With the condition the man was in, the boy could have very easily just leapt in when the time was right and stabbed him in the throat. The boy rolled back several feet just as the scythe tore through the air just above where his head had been. "Whoa! Almost got me there!" he shouted, cackling. "I know you can do better! C'mon! C'mon!"

The man snarled, his face twisted with rage. He took the scythe in both hands and winced, making a small jump back. The two eyed each other from across the clearing, the man gasping for breath while the boy laughed appreciatively, that grin never once having left his face.

"Well?" the boy shouted. "Are you going to throw it? Then throw it! Go on! Maybe you'll get lucky and manage to get a hit in! Come on! Come on! Just hurry up and DO IT!

The man did nothing, said nothing. He lowered the scythe cautiously, narrowing his eyes. "Amano..." His voice suddenly took on a pleading tone. "Amano, please..."

"What?" the boy shot back in a mocking tone, tucking the knife against his wrist and rising to his full height. "Are you afraid you'll hurt me? Afraid you'll kill me?"

The man visibly winced at that, averting his eyes.

The boy chuckled bitterly, lowering his eyes as his smile began to fade. For a second, just a second, he looked almost sad. "Well-" The expression shattered, and he was suddenly so insanely angry that he was almost shaking. He turned quickly, untucking the knife and balancing it against his fingertips, his feet placed solidly on the ground as he hunkered down into a half-crouch. "That certainly never stopped you be-FORE!" And with the grace and expertise of a master knife-thrower, he flung the knife in a perfect line straight across the clearing.

It flew in a blur straight at the man. He tried to dodge it, but it was too late. He gave a shrill cry as it buried itself to the hilt in his left shoulder, stumbling back. Miyako cried out, her hands flying to her lips to muffle it. He stared down at it in uncomprehending disbelief. His knees abruptly buckled and he crashed to the ground, gasping and choking and bleeding. The boy was suddenly behind him, face blank and utterly silent and as he swiftly reached around the man's shoulder towards the knife.

The man's eyes widened as realization came to him.

And with a smile, the boy gripped the knife, tearing it up and out with a sickening wet sound.

The scream alone was enough to make Miyako turn away, fresh tears streaming down her face. Nausea bubbled up in her throat and she nearly vomited. Several seconds passed before she could work up the courage to look back.

The man was on his side now, choking and writhing and bleeding. A look of hopelessness crossed his face and he clenched his eyes shut, accepting of whatever was to come. The boy dropped to his knees next to him, an arc of oily black blood splashing across his face like warpaint as he lifted the knife high above his head, the blade chromed and glinting in the moonlight.

And everything happened so quickly after that. There was a deafening crash and the pink-haired man was suddenly screaming again. Something pulsing and purple and shaped almost like a lightning bolt was sticking out of his thigh, bathed in blinding white light. The boy jumped up in surprise only to be thrown back by a spray of sparkling frost.

Then the woman in the blue kimono was suddenly picking the pink-haired man up, disappearing in a rush of darkness and reappearing at Miyako's side with such abruptness that she couldn't help but stumble backwards. The woman grabbed her elbow and pulled her against her. Her hand was cold. Her right eye was swollen shut. Her face was bleeding and she was struggling to stand upright. "Hurry!" she forced between her teeth. "_Come on_!"

The pink-haired man looked down at Miyako in bleary-eyed confusion.

The boy rushed to his feet as his face broke apart in a snarl.

Xigbar and Vexen ran into her line of sight, one holding a gun and the other holding what looked like an oversized blue shield. They seemed shocked to see her.

And then everything disappeared in a deafening rush of complete blackness.

And the funny this was, Miyako couldn't really find herself caring anymore.

* * *

><p>"Son of a BITCH!"<p>

"Xigbar, " Vexen said irritably, lowering his shield, "we have company."

The child just stood there, glaring at the space where Marluxia had just been before slowly turning to face them. He took a moment to rub the stripe of Marluxia's blood from his cheek, staring down at it with a detached look. With a snort, he brushed it off on his clothes, leaving a hard black smear across his chest. He didn't bother hiding his annoyed sigh. "You're certainly new," he said with an accusing glare, crossing his arms, his knife glinting like liquid mercury in the dark as he tucked it against his wrist. The blade alone was almost the length of his forearm. "But I guess I shouldn't find your appearance surprising. I've sensed you for quite some time now."

Vexen didn't respond to that, knowing better than to release his shield. Even from a distance the child reeked of darkness. His aura was similar to that of the woman in the blue robe. Cold, lacking something. A Nobody?

"You've made a big mistake, kid," Xigbar said, jabbing a finger in his direction for emphasis. "You don't attack our guys."

"Is that what those black robes are about?" The child snorted, his face stretching with a smug grin that was shockingly reminiscent of Number XI's. "And your name-Xigbar, was it? With an X?" He chuckled, staring thoughtfully up at the sky. "He's done the same thing. But no matter how much he scrambles it up, no matter how many meaningless letters he throws into it, he's still my Amaru. Still a failure. Still incomplete. Still Amaru." He paused to crack his neck, stretching his arms high above his head. "I normally don't mind a little competition, but you two are already proving to be rather annoying. He's mine. And if you take my Amaru away from me, I will not make things easy for you." He paused, tapping the point of the knife against his lips and casually licking the blood away. "And it seems a tad hypocritical for you to go and tell me not to attack him. Is your aim worse off than you're willing to admit, Mr. Xigbar, or is friendly fire just that common in your group?" He laughed. "Either way you don't come off looking much better than me." The child stared at them pointedly from under his bangs, his hard yellow eyes cold and dead. "Leave now. None of this concerns you."

"Trust me, kid. This has concerned me ever since your psychopathic little friend tried to chop my head off with his scythe. We're stronger. We outnumber you. So get lost."

"Don't underestimate me," the child shot back immediately. "I know the area. I have greater control over the darkness." A pause. A smile. "And I'm fast." He yawned. "Looks like we've reached an impasse."

"... It seems we share an enemy, boy," Vexen said slowly.

"The bitch in blue," Xigbar said, scowling.

The child cocked his head with a deep frown. "If you're suggesting that we work together, then I'm sorry gentlemen, but I must decline. I work alone."

"Either way, we have a common enemy," Xigbar said. "And isn't the enemy of my enemy also my friend?"

The corner of the child's mouth twitched in a ghost of a smile. "You hardly seem the type to make alliances, Mr. Xigbar."

"Trust me, kid, it's killing me inside."

The child sighed dramatically. "Once again, I must decline. I follow no one."

"Then I guess we'll have to make it a little competition. May the best man win, and all that noise."

The child gave a smile that would have been positively chilling if Vexen were capable of feeling. "I intend to."

And he abruptly disappeared in a rush of darkness.

* * *

><p>Trapping your fear in your heart wasn't quite as easy to do when you were swallowed up by pure darkness, Miyako came to realize. But when she abruptly came to, crashing against the dirt and knocking over several unlit candles, her face scraping the ground, she supposed that things could have been worse.<p>

The darkness could have been eternal. Nothing to do but wander aimlessly through the shadows. Alone for all eternity in that screaming utter blackness-she shuddered at the thought.

The pink-haired man was conspicuously silent. Miyako rolled onto her back and pushed up on her elbows, watching silently as the woman in the blue kimono moved quickly around the-

-where exactly were they? There were white candles everywhere, most lit, some not, some melted down into waxy stumps. Dozens upon dozens of bright red pinwheels were scattered around her, set up in neat little rows and somehow spinning, despite the obvious lack of wind. She lifted her hand as it brushed over something rough. A root? … Were they inside a tree?

"Amaru! … Amaru!" The woman was kneeling down on the ground beside the man, brushing the hair out of his eyes and desperately patting his face. "Wake up! Please, wake up!"

Amaru-

(-_What kind of parent would be so cruel as to name their child that_-?)

-groaned, his face scrunching up. "I was close," he croaked, "I was so close. But he... surprised me."

"Yes. I know." The woman reached down, grabbing a small clay cup and bringing it to his lips. "But you're here now. You're safe. Now drink."

The man took a tentative sip as she held him up almost like a baby, his eyes still closed. He grimaced. "Has it always tasted this awful?"

"It is safe," she said patiently. "Drink." He did, emptying the cup. She set him back down, rising to her feet and going behind Miyako.

It took a moment for him to open his eyes. In the light Miyako saw that they were deep blue, a color too rich to be natural. He lifted his bare hand to shield his eyes from the brightness. He blinked, staring up irritably at his broken finger. "A marvelous thing to wake up to," he said flatly.

Amaru sighed, rolling clumsily onto his side. He winced, reaching for the knife wound only to drop his hand. The cloudiness went out of his eyes as he noticed Miyako for the first time. A think line formed on his brow. "Who is _she_?"

"Another prisoner." The woman crossed back to him, holding a large bowl in one hand and a handful of dark green herbs in the other. She tossed the herbs into the bowl and began crushing them with a stone. "How is your leg?"

"Healing." Amaru stared up at her, another think line forming. "What on earth happened to you?" He almost sounded worried.

The woman gave a small smile, attempting to reassure him as she gently pushed him back down. "I... met more of your pursuers. One wasn't as injured as I originally thought. Very tall, very big; red, maybe brown hair?"

"Lexaeus," Amaru said with a tired sigh, swatting her hand away and pushing himself back onto his elbows. His frown deepened into a full-fledged scowl. "We'll have to watch out for him."

"There was another one with bright red hair. They were in the tunnels. In the cutting chamb-" She stopped suddenly, looking down awkwardly. Despite that, her hands never stopped working. She set the stone down and reached into her obi, pulling out a short, thin stick. She stirred. "Lay down," she said firmly. "Don't make me shove you." She reached down, fiddling with front of his coat and frowning.

"It's called a zipper. You pull it down." He did so, peeling off his coat to reveal a dirty gray wool sweater underneath, torn and stained with that oily black blood. Miyako respectfully turned away as the woman lifted it up to get to the knife wound.

"He cursed it," the woman said in that even, patient voice. "It won't heal so easily."

There was a heavy silence. "I know," Amaru said after a while. He made a small pained grunt, an occasional hiss.

The woman gave a sudden loud gasp. Miyako turned sharply. The woman in the blue kimono was holding Amaru's coat in her hands, peering through a large tear. Amaru was staring up at it with wide eyes. After a moment Miyako realized that the hole was on the back of the left shoulder. The knife had gone all the way thr-

Miyako jerked away, suddenly feeling sick.

More heavy silence. Both Amaru and the woman sighed in near-perfect unison. It would have been almost funny, under different circumstances.

The woman set the coat back down. "Turn ove-"

Amaru was already on his side, facing Miyako. "I know."

She set to work, wiping the wound clean before gently dabbing it with the herbal paste. He winced, his shoulder twitching beneath her touch. After a while she turned away, grabbing a roll of clean white bandages. She touched his elbow. "Lift your arm."

As she wrapped the bandage meticulously up and around his chest and shoulder, Amaru stared blankly at the ground, grimacing each time she went back near the wound. He seemed to ignore Miyako completely. The woman tapped his shoulder once she finished and he rolled once more onto his back.

"Lady Osaka is awake," he said after a moment.

That made the woman pause. "Are you sure?" Her voice suddenly took on an urgent tone.

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "And with her..."

The silence was choking.

Miyako jumped when the woman's attention suddenly turned to her. Those eyes were hard to look at, hard to be looked at with, even with one of them swollen shut. She was motioning for her to remove her stocking. "What is your name?" she asked gently, cleaning her bleeding heel. Seeing her like this, calm and gentle and maternal, Miyako realized that the woman couldn't really have been much older than she was. 30, at most.

"Sudo Miyako," she said after a moment, averting her eyes.

The woman nodded. "I think it would be best if you stayed here for a while. This is the only safe place left."

Miyako immediately shook her head. "I can't. I'm grateful for what you've done, I really am, but I can't. Masumi is-" She paused, looking down. She reached into her bag and pulled out the photograph of them together. The woman took it hesitantly. "We're... in a relationship," Miyako said. "He went missing in this area weeks ago. He's a surveyor. He was commissioned to survey the area for the construction of the Minakami dam about a month ago."

The woman paused, her eyes widening. "Dam?" She turned to Amaru for an answer.

He only shook his head tiredly. _I'll tell you later._

Miyako continued in a quiet but firm voice. "He's here. I found a page from his notebook. I don't know where exactly he is or even if he's still ali- … But he's here. I refuse to hide or lock myself up when I know he's still out there." Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. "And I refuse to leave without him. I won't abandon him, not after everything he's done for me."

The woman said nothing. She gently placed the photo in Miyako's lap. A tear splashed onto it, running up to the top of Masumi's head. Miyako covered her mouth, desperate to choke back the sobs.

"Once you leave this tree, you will not be able to return." There. Again with that limitless patience. There was something else, though. A tone of mild disapproval. Almost like a mother speaking to a child. "We-" the woman gestured to Amaru, "-have business elsewhere. We are the only ones that can enter here at will, and we cannot go with you to protect you. It is now more dangerous out there than it has ever been before, especially for someone like you. Are you so willing to risk your life for this man?"

Miyako nodded with a sniffle, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Yes. Yes I am."

The woman nodded grimly. "Then I suppose I cannot stop you." She rose to her feet. "However, I cannot allow you to leave here defenseless. Not now. We cannot afford any more losses. The Darkness grows stronger with each one." She stared down at her. "Wait here. I will return shortly."

"W-wait," Miyako said, holding out her hand. "Y-you helped me. You helped me and I don't even know your name."

The woman paused, looking to Amaru out of the corner of her eye. He glared up at her, frowning._ Don't_, that look said. _Don't you_ dare.

"... Kiryu," the woman said anyway, her gaze distant and unfocused. "Kiryu Akane."

And she disappeared into complete blackness.

* * *

><p>In the dark and the gloom of the forest path, Vexen heard the unmistakable ringing of a Crimson Butterfly. It took a moment for it to reveal itself, floating out from the trees and landing in the crook of his elbow.<p>

"Aww," Xigbar cooed. "You made a friend."

Vexen shot a glare his way, pointedly dismissing his shield. The butterfly shot up, drifting further down the path, back towards the village.

"That's not ominous," Xigbar muttered dryly.

They trailed after it, following it until it came to a stop just outside the house they had spent the past few hours in and floated in place. Vexen quirked his brow as it came to land on his shoulder, a speck of warmth and brilliance amidst the cold and unforgiving dark.

Xigbar made a sharp surprised noise. Vexen turned to find three butterflies resting on the Freeshooter. He stiffened as one crawled up his arm.

That infernal ringing was everywhere now. Dozens of Crimson Butterflies filled the air around them, darting about in a near-frenzy. And just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone, racing off into the heart of the village and out of their sight.

"_That's_ not ominous."

Vexen sniffed, chewing his lip. Three butterflies had broken away from the mass and drifted off to the right, towards what appeared to be a small white shed. They collected on the rusted shutters at the front of the tiny building.

* * *

><p><em>Itsuuukiii? Itsuuukiii...? I've got something for you Itsuuukiii-!<em>

Itsuki slowly opened his eyes, frowning deeply up into the dark.

_Itsuuukiii? Why won't you come out? We're waiting for yooou! Won't you help Chitose? She's so fragile, so easily broken...!_

Itsuki slowly pulled himself up, rubbing his eyes as the blanket pooled around his waist.

Another dream. Another nightmare. Another memory.

Not another day in _here_.

The air around him was stale, suffocating. It carried a sickly smell. He pulled himself to his feet, disentangling himself from the blanket and stumbling around in the dark. It was pitch black in here. Not that it was a problem. He could maneuver it blindfolded at this point.

Itsuki reached out into the black, pushing his hand through the shutters. A Butterfly drifted in through the bars and landed on his shoulder, opening and closing its wings.

Footsteps. Male voices.

Itsuki frowned, grabbing onto the cold metal bars and peering out through the window.

* * *

><p>Akane paused, her hand resting on the desk.<p>

She heard them outside. The Butterflies. There must have been hundreds of them. The ringing was deafening, enough to drive a man mad.

She sensed one more strongly than the others. It was moving away from them, towards her. "Azami," she said, reaching out through the hole in the wall before her. Azami landed in her palm, slowly closing her wings. "Azami," she repeated, caressing her in her hands. "Sister, could you help me? I cannot find the key..."

Azami took flight, coming to a stop by a pile of rubble just across the room. Akane rose, making her way towards Sister. She was careful, sure to keep her steps light. The boards here were rotten. Time had not been kind to the Tsuchihara house. She reached down into the rubble, searching with her fingers. They brushed against cold metal and she pulled the key out, closing her hand around it tightly.

Another presence. Akane knew it well.

Itsuki was awake.

Then what Amaru had said was true. The village was waking up.

Not much time left.

Akane crossed back to the desk, dropping into a crouch. She inserted the key and turned it, pulling the drawer open. It was stuffed full with papers. Frowning, she pulled them out, laying them in a messy stack on the surface of the desk. Birth records, marriages, deaths. A letter here, a newspaper clipping there. It was an unorganized mess. Her frown deepened as she felt a sudden sadness overwhelm her. Amaru had been neglecting his duties towards the end.

Akane knew that she and Sister were no longer alone even before she heard him creep up behind her. She turned quickly, pulling out her knife as Azami came to rest on her shoulder.

Amano had the audacity to wave. "Hi! The giant sure did a number on _you_."

"What do you want?" she asked gruffly, feeling Azami draw closer to her throat as she raised the knife.

"Whoa! No need to get violent!" Amano's hands shot up, empty. "No weapon, see?"

She snorted. "Then I suppose you just came to talk?"

"Yes, actually, I did." He tucked his hands behind his back, rolling on his heels and staring up at her. "Care to tell me what you're doing here?"

Akane ignored him, taking Sister into her hand. "It's your last chance to leave, Amano."

Amano's eyes narrowed as his smile grew, the childish facade dropped for now. "I'd rather not. Wouldn't want to miss the fireworks." He watched Azami out of the corner of his eye, wary. "What's wrong with her?"

Akane stared as Sister crawled across her knuckles. "The two chosen children are close. The village is awakening."

"Yeah, I noticed. It's getting a little crowded." His smile grew cruel. "I saw your dad. You should go visit him sometime. He seems _awfully_ lonely."

Akane closed her eyes, forcing down her anger as it threatened to spill over. She focused on Azami's warmth.

"Think fast!" She felt something light bounce off of her chest. The knife came out anyway, held level with his throat.

He didn't even flinch. "_Jumpy_ today, aren't we?" He reached down to grab the fallen object at her feet, which she now saw was Miyako's missing shoe. He held it out to her. "Just thought I'd help the poor thing out. It isn't fun to walk around here barefoot." He curled his own bare toes, as if to emphasize.

Akane ripped it from his hand with a growl.

A corridor of darkness bloomed up behind him. Amano smiled, stepping back. The shadows jumped and curled around his feet and ankles in excited little ribbons, crawling up his too-pale legs as if they were living things. He glared at her with eyes far too cunning to belong to a child. "I will win. And, when you least expect it, I will kill you." He laughed, giving a small shrug. "But hey, at least your father won't be alone anymore, right?"

* * *

><p>"You can stop staring at me."<p>

Miyako jumped as Amaru's eyes shot open and he glared up at her accusingly.

"I-I'm sorry," she managed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "It's just-your finger-"

"What about it?" he asked gruffly, his expression darkening.

"N-nothing."

"That's what I thought." He laid back down with a well-concealed wince, reaching around for his water cup and putting it to his lips. After a moment he frowned, lifting his head to stare into it. It was empty.

Eager to reduce the tension, Miyako reached into her bag, pulling out a filled water bottle. "Here," she said, holding it out to him. "It's well water, but it's safe to drink."

He stared back at her, narrowing his eyes. He didn't trust her one bit. Then again, what reason did he have to?

Discouraged, Miyako shrunk back slightly. She unscrewed the cap and poured a bit into her mouth, swallowing. She offered it to him again without a word.

There was a pause, a lengthy hesitation, but he did take it. He took a long gulp. He held it out to her, but she only shook her head. "Please, keep it. I think you need it more than I do."

Wordlessly, he set the bottle down at his side, grabbing his tattered coat and draping it across his body like a blanket. The finger on his left hand was now perfectly straight, the joints flexing smoothly beneath the skin. Miyako tried not to stare at it. She closed her eyes, tossing her head back, her ankle throbbing dully.

"You realize that in all likelihood he's dead?" Amaru murmured. "This Masumi of yours?"

Miyako frowned, opening her eyes again. "I won't lose hope. I'll never stop searching."

Amaru chuckled quietly. "Your determination is admirable, I suppose." He shifted, turning to face her. "But your naivete may very well cost you your life. Do you not realize that?"

"I've made my decision," she said firmly.

"My dear," he said slowly, his words brimming with false kindness, "go any longer you are sure to be consumed by the darkness. Are you so willing to subject yourself to that fate for a corpse?"

Miyako held his gaze, but the tears threatened to spill over once more. She thought of Mother. Mother had talked to her like this. And Mother had always been been able to cut right to her core.

Amaru stared at her for a moment before suddenly smiling. It was the smile of that Amano boy, predatory and coated in honey. "He's all you have," he said with absolute certainty. "You don't have anywhere else to go, do you?"

Something inside her shattered.

Days without proper sleep, without proper food or water or shelter or _safety_, days being stalked by that Amano boy or hunted by the men with the torches, days with her worries constantly gnawing at her mind, stealing her sleep and her judgement and her sanity-and in just a few brief words this man showed that he had broken down her walls and read her thoughts, read her like a book and voiced her greatest fears! Miyako shot up, reaching blindly for something to throw as she gave an enraged cry.

Her feet were suddenly pulled out from under her. She landed roughly on her back as she felt something cold and sharp pressed against her throat. Amaru stared down at her, the blade of the scythe a barrier between them. "You've already proven that you have a death wish." He pulled his scythe up sharply, suddenly looking so much taller. He cocked his head. "And I doubt that you want me to be the one to fulfill it, am I correct?"

Miyako couldn't say a thing as her body began to tremble. Broken little sobs forced their way up her throat as utter helplessness overtook her.

Amaru turned away and dismissed the scythe, seemingly satisfied. Through the blur of tears she could see that his back was covered in jagged, wiry strips of pale white scar tissue. There was a large, oval scar on his left forearm, left over from what had to have been a downright brutal injury. "So fragile," he said under his breath.

Miyako realized that she could have killed him, right then and there, without an ounce of regret. She lifted her hands, covering her face in shame as her sobs gave way to wails.

And somewhere in the haze, she began to laugh. It started off as quiet, bubble-like peals, drifting up from her chest. Then she was writhing on the ground, holding her stomach helplessly as laughter erupted from her throat and the tears refused to stop.

She was vaguely aware of Amaru watching her, blank-faced, before snorting and rolling over, presumably to go back to sleep.

* * *

><p>Akane stepped out of the darkness and into the candlelight, blood rushing in her ears as she stumbled into the wall. She would never grow accustomed to travelling in the corridors. Amaru stirred at her feet, staring up at her expectantly. His gaze went to her shoulder as Azami crawled up from her back.<p>

Miyako was sitting motionless in the corner, her knees pressed against her chest. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, her face bright red.

Akane knew better than to pry. "Itsuki is awake," she said, "and the Butterflies are flocking to the Abyss."

"Then we'd best hurry," Amaru said, standing and donning his shredded coat. He looked down at the camera in her hand, arching a brow before turning to stare at Miyako. "In the state she is in, the darkness will have her very soon," he murmured, his expression softening. He suddenly smirked. "It's rather pitiful."

Akane didn't respond, going to Miyako and dropping into a crouch. She smiled as best she could, her swollen eye throbbing. "Miss Sudo," she said gently.

Miyako blinked and knotted her brow as if she had just awoken from a dream. She stared at Akane with wet eyes.

Akane took her hand, pressing several folded sheets of paper into her palm. Miyako jerked at her touch. "Miss Sudo," she repeated. "Masumi is alive."

Miyako was slow to react, knotting her brow further as she turned Akane's words over in her mind. Something clicked. Her lips parted and she broke into a beaming smile, lifting her hand to her mouth as a sudden bout of sobs caused her body to tremble.

Akane heard a sigh of irritation behind her. She frowned, pulling a key from the folds of her kimono. "He is deep underground. You must make your way to the Earth Bridge through the Kiryu house." She dropped the key into her hand and gestured to the papers. "These maps will guide you there." She lifted the camera and placed it in Miyako's lap. "If you should discover any other wandering souls, be sure to capture them with this camera. It will stun them."

Akane rose, crossing back to Amaru. He grudgingly turned to face the wall, the tree warping and creaking beneath his fingertips as he created a hole wide enough for Miyako to pass through. A corridor of darkness bloomed up between them as he stared at her expectantly. She shot a final look over her shoulder at Miyako, immediately averting her eyes. "If-if you see an older man with white hair, please..." She paused, swallowing thickly. "... please don't hurt him."

Amaru took her gently by the shoulder, guiding her into the shadows. For the first time in years, she entered the swirling dark without fear, staring up into his face as the corridor closed behind them and shut out all light.

And she smiled.

He took her hand, leading her further into the dark.


	8. Chapter 7

_Miyako had a beautiful smile._

_It was by no means perfect. Her teeth were slightly yellowed and she had strange white streaks on her two front teeth. Those same teeth had grown in crooked, for reasons he had known all along but had never fully realized until that night. But when she smiled, everything about her was suddenly so much prettier. Her skin seemed to glow. Her hair had a shine. Her eyes lost their dead, glazed look and sparkled, accentuating her looks and making her appear younger, more innocent._

_Three years passed before he actually saw it._

_Anytime she smiled before, her hand would fly up to her mouth before he could see. Her lips would stretch until they were tight and thin and bloodless, sealing away her teeth. She would avert her eyes, as if embarrassed._

_It took nearly three years before he realized why. He'd known. He'd always known. The answer had been lying right in front of him ever since he was a little boy._

_His mother had smiled like that. His mother had smiled like that because-_

* * *

><p><em>-her teeth had been punched in.<em>

"_Masumi? Are you there? Hello?"_

_The voice on the other end of the phone went unnoticed. The realization had hit him so suddenly, so abruptly. It had stolen his breath. He had gone still. He had happened to look up from the desk to the pictures on the wall, still half-asleep. He saw Miyako and her not-smile, trapped forever behind a thin sheet of glass and encircled in a brass frame, put on display for everyone to see._

_Her _teeth _had been punched _in_._

_All of the pieces clicked into place. Everything suddenly made sense. Miyako had always shied away from his touch, had kept her distance for quite a while even after they had begun dating. It took three dates before she would allow him to kiss her. He had thought it was just in her nature. She was an old-fashioned girl, after all, raised in the country and always quiet._

_But he had begun to grow worried after a while. Her reactions weren't normal. The chewed nails, the lackluster hair, the dark bags under her eyes. They weren't normal, either. And the burn. That tiny scar on her right palm. She would scratch and pick at it when she was nervous, when she stopped clasping her hands and twirling her thumbs. He had tried to stay supportive, he really had, he _wanted_ to. But sometimes it was just too much. She would drift away. They would fight. He would raise his voice. _

_And Miyako would just sit there, limp, apologizing for everything and cowering away from him when he got too close. As much as he wanted to get even angrier, he just couldn't. As much as he wanted for her to fight back, for her place the blame on him, he couldn't do it. It scared him. _She _scared him._

_And when he got scared, he would run. He would just leave her wherever she was. Take a walk, maybe drive around a bit. Sometimes he'd hit things. Break things. Punch and throw himself against the walls. Scream._

_Still a coward._

_And when he'd come back hours later, more often than not, she was where he left her. Her lips would be bleeding. Her nails would be ragged._

_And he would feel _horrible_._

"_Masumi? Ma-suuu-mi? … Crap, did it go out _agai-?"

"_I'm here," Masumi said into the phone, rubbing at his eyes. "Sorry. Just drifted off."_

"_Oh yeah," Aiko said on the other end. There was a hiss of static as she moved the phone. Her voice wavered in and out as she adjusted it. "-orgot it's, like, what-oo in the morning there?"_

"_Try three," he said flatly, looking up at the ticking wall clock. "And it's not exactly broad daylight where you are, either."_

"_Sorry. I get mixed up sometimes."_

Bit of an understatement_, he thought._

"_Did I wake up your girlfriend?"_

_She said it in a light, playful tone, but he hesitated at the mention of Miyako. "She's fine," he said a bit too quickly, hoping to convince himself._

_Aiko paused. Masumi felt a chill crawl down his spine. He didn't want to talk about these things. Not now, and especially not with-_

"_It's about Dad," Aiko said quietly. "I'm calling about Dad."_

_As if there would be anything else to call about._

_Masumi paused. He tried to fight off a smile and failed._

"_Did that miserable old bastard finally die?" he spat, suddenly almost giddy. He had been waiting for this for nearly sixteen years._

_Hell, he'd dare to say he had _dreamed _about it._

_Aiko was his half-sister, twelve years older than him and the product of an affair of his father's with some woman Masumi had never met in person. After Mom died, he had hardly seen anyone in his family._

_Least of all that scum-sucking son of a bitch he had been forced to call Father._

_Aiko was a licensed nurse. Her only patient for the last ten months had been Dear Old Dad._

"_No. Not dead," Aiko said in a disapproving tone. She hadn't been around Dear Old Dad enough, that much was obvious. Masumi rubbed at the scar on his shoulder before he realized just what he was doing._

"_... Another stroke, then." It wasn't quite a question. _

"_Yup. 'd I ever tell you that I feed him almost nothing but vanilla pudding? He can't get enough of that stuff."_

"_He hates vanilla. Are you sure?"_

"_Who's taking care of him?"_

_Masumi sighed. "You are."_

"_Then you should know that's a stupid question. He gobbles that stuff up. I never met a man who doesn't like a good vanilla pudding on the way out." There was a pause. She spoke solemnly. "It was a small one. A little blowout in his brain. If it was a big one, he'd be gone, no doubt about it." Aiko paused again. "I'm calling because... because he's not eating the pudding no more. He just chokes on whatever I give him now. He just... stares at things. Hasn't said a word in three days."_

"_Why isn't he in the hospital?"_

"_Masumi, why would I send him to the hospital when he has no chance of gettin' better? Why take a bed from someone who actually needs it?"_

_Damn it, Aiko really made sense sometimes. He was fatigued. Hadn't slept properly in four days. That had to have been it._

" …'_sides, I kind of like spending time with him," she added, sounding almost like a child._

"_You're just as insane as he is," Masumi spat._

"_Damn it, why do you talk about him like that?" Aiko shouted indignantly. It was so loud and so unexpected that he jerked away from the phone. "He's your _father_! He's _dying_, for heaven's sake!"_

"_Aiko, calm down. I'm sorry. You caught me at a bad time."_

_She snorted, on the verge of tears. "Then I must _always_ 'catch you at a bad time.' "_

_He paused, at a loss for words. "I'm sorry, Aiko."_

"_Why do you hate me, Masumi? Huh? Is it because I'm not really part of your hoity-toity little family? Is that it?"_

_He didn't say a word, couldn't. He clenched his hands until they trembled. The phone creaked in his fist. "... I don't hate you, Aiko," he managed to choke out._

"_You're a horrible son," she growled. "I can see why he disowned you."_

_His eyes flew wide-open. He clenched his teeth, his mouth frozen in a soundless snarl._

_Aiko released a choked sob. The phone hissed with white noise. "I'll keep you updated, if you even care." She hung up abruptly._

_Masumi stood there in the pitch dark, fuming, shaking. He slammed the phone down with a screech. The impact shook the desk, sending a tiny glass ballerina careening to the ground. It shattered on the living room carpet, the sound impossibly loud._

_Masumi suddenly froze, staring down at the ballerina's remains with dread. _

_That ballerina._

_Oh God, Miyako _loved _that ballerina._

_Masumi dropped to his knees with a convulsive gasp, gathering the pieces up into his hands. He dropped them just as quickly, hissing and cursing. They had cut straight into his palms._

_He wasn't sure how long he sat there, sobbing helplessly, months and months of frustration finally coming out, but when he heard the floorboards creak behind him, he was nowhere near done. He jerked sideways to look into the hallway, noticing the faint outline of a woman's shadow. Masumi sighed, turning away and closing his eyes, deeply ashamed. He felt naked in only his pajama pants. He shivered._

"_It's alright, Miyako," he uttered. "I'm okay. Just go back to sleep."_

_He heard her walk up behind him, her footsteps muffled by the carpet._

_He laughed._

_He had to._

_Of all the times to be defiant-!_

* * *

><p><em>He had been living on her aunt's couch for the past two months, after being hit with the realization that he just couldn't afford his high-class apartment anymore. For the past eight weeks, he had been sleeping just down the hall from Miyako. <em>

_Miyako. _

_It took every bit of willpower he had to keep from jumping up from the rickety couch springs every night and crawling into bed with her._

_But they took it slow, practically at a glacial pace._

_Masumi was by no means a patient man, but if it meant staying with her, he was willing to wait forever._

_It didn't make those hours spent alone in the bathroom any less shameful._

_But. _

_It was Miyako. _

_He would wait for Miyako._

* * *

><p><em>Miyako crossed to the cabinet, stumbling across the kitchen tiles, her tiny feet bruised and pale. The burns on the soles of her feet stood out in the fluorescent light. As she reached up for the first aid kit, her heavy flannel pajama shirt rose, revealing the small of her back and the beginning curve of her behind.<em>

_Masumi caught himself staring for far longer than he would have liked to admit._

_Miyako crossed back to him silently, looking very tired. Her hair was a mess. The skin around her eyes was dark. _

_She didn't press for answers._

_Miyako opened up the kit and soaked a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, holding it over his clenched fists expectantly. _

_She looked straight into his eyes._

_Without a word, he opened his hands, staring down at the table between his elbows. He winced as she pressed at the cuts. She set the cotton ball down, pulling out a pair of band-aids._

_He ripped his hands away. "I don't need any fucking band-aids," he growled._

_Miyako froze, and he instantly regretted saying it. She slowly set them back in place, snapping the box shut._

"_... Please don't wake up my aunt," she said quietly. "She has work in the morning."_

_The rage came screaming back. " 'Please, please,' it's always _please_! I just broke your mother's statue and woke you up in the middle of the night. Why can't you just scream at me like a normal fucking person?"_

_There was a tense silence. They stared at each other for a very long time._

"_Miyako..." he whispered. She looked up at him with watery eyes that betrayed her stony mask. He couldn't take it. He pressed his face into his palms, ignoring the sting. "Shit... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

_He didn't expect her to take his hand. Her fingers were impossibly warm. She flattened them against the table, palm-up. He let her. She pulled out the bandages and peeled off the plastic, methodically pressing them onto his hands. He never took his eyes off of her. Her jaw flexed beneath the skin as she choked back the last of her tears._

_He wanted her._

_He wanted her _bad_._

_Her thick red pajamas covered almost every inch of her body. He wanted to peel them away slowly, to reveal every inch of her, kiss her skin, lick it. The lack of visible flesh only served to fuel his imagination. She was beautiful._

_She pulled away to signal that she was done. She looked him earnestly in the eye. She smiled her not-smile. "It was just a statue, Masumi. I will always have my memories of Mother to comfort me. I'm much more worried about your hands."_

_The chair squealed against the floor as she pushed back. She pushed it back into place, putting away the first aid kit and walking past him towards her bedroom. She stopped in the archway, looking at him over her shoulder. "_You_ mean much more to me than that statue, Masumi."_

_She left him in the yellow, flickering light. He heard her door creak closed._

_Pity. _

_There had been _pity _in her eyes._

_Masumi buried his face in his hands. _

_Just how much of the phone conversation had she heard?_

_He lifted his head, counting the tiles on the floor. He thought of her tired eyes and her knotted hair._

_Had she slept at all?_

_He sighed, staring down at his hands. He stared at the band-aids. There were little flowers on them. Purple, pink, and green._

_He wriggled his fingers. Waved at himself._

_It was a long time before he rose to flick off the light._

* * *

><p>Masumi awoke to screaming. It was a man, somewhere behind him in the tunnel, the voice echoing off of the rock. It sounded more angry than scared, something Masumi wasn't quite used to in this horrible place. He rolled onto his stomach and pulled himself into a crouch, staring blindly into the dark, listening intently with his pulse pounding in his ears.<p>

There was a flash of blinding yellow light. Acrid smoke. Still more shouting. He picked out a few English words, struggling to find their meaning. He came up blank. But he didn't have to understand it to pick up the tone.

This man wasn't just angry. He was grade-A, blinded-with-fury _pissed off._

Masumi's blood ran cold, the sweat cooling on his skin. He considered his options. A part of him knew to avoid the screams. If there was one thing Dear Old Dad had taught him, it was that when a man was screaming like that, you ran and hid until he was done, lest he take it out on _you_. He didn't need another scar. He'd learned enough.

But that had been when he had been living under a roof, in a mansion surrounded by other people. That had been when he could choose anything he wanted to eat or drink, no matter how expensive, not like now where he had been living off of weird-looking cave fish and river water that tasted like sweatsocks for a month. That had been when he had a closet full of fine clothes and could take a warm bath whenever he wanted, not like now where he had been wearing the same clothes for weeks and hadn't even seen so much as a puddle for days.

That had been when he wasn't completely isolated in endless darkness.

That had been when he wasn't jumping at every little sound.

That had been when every shape and every shadow around him couldn't potentially end his life.

Hell wasn't fire and brimstone, he had come to realize. Hell wasn't even sharing a home with Dear Old Dad. Hell was a dark, dank tunnel that went on forever.

And he didn't want that anymore.

If the man was violent, lashed out at him and killed him, so be it. Dear Old Dad would outlive him, but he would be free.

He would be _free._

And if the man _wasn't_ violent, was willing to to partner up and maybe even _help _him, that was good, too.

Masumi quickly gathered up what little he had. A backpack that had lightened considerably since he'd woken up here all those days ago; a pilfered torch that had long since gone out; a tattered old white kimono that he had found lying around here and had been using as a makeshift blanket.

The kimono was child-sized. He didn't like to think about it.

He threw everything into his pack and stumbled out into the light, his eyes adjusting.

There was a man crouched next to a large rock in the center of the tunnel, about his age, it looked like. In the firelight-

(-_Where did _that _come from_-?)

-Masumi could see that he had bright red hair, pressed into impossible spikes that cascaded down to his shoulders. When the man jerked in surprise, looking up at him, he saw that he had strange marks below his eyes. Tattoos, maybe. He was wearing a bizarre black coat that had ripped down the middle. The shirt beneath it was riddled with holes, heavily stained. He _really_ hoped that it wasn't blood.

The man shouted something he didn't understand, leaping to his feet and gesturing violently. Masumi racked his mind for the stock English phrases he had learned throughout the years. He thought briefly of Miyako and how much he needed her right now. Her English was so much better than his. She could talk circles around him.

He didn't get the chance to say anything. The man pulled out a pair of weird spiked wheels, holding them menacingly out in front of him. Masumi took a step back, holding out his hands to show that he meant no harm.

The earth began to tremble beneath his feet. He lost balance as it shifted and circled around his ankles, trapping him. Panicking and bewildered, he saw the rock next to the red-haired man shift, too fluidly for stone. It moved closer to the light, and only then did he realize it was a _man_.

* * *

><p>"Hey! Kid!" Xigbar said, taking a step towards the shack. "We're kinda lost. Care to help us out?"<p>

The white-haired boy stared back at him with wide eyes, frozen to the spot. He abruptly slammed the shutters closed, sending little red butterflies scattering.

"... You've got to be kidding me," Xigbar muttered, pulling out a gun. "I oughta kill him for that."

Vexen snorted beside him. "Don't waste your energy. It is just a child."

"What energy? All it is is point and shoot."

Vexen narrowed his eyes. "You saw that woman in the box. There could be more like her infesting every square inch of this damned place. The last thing we need is to attract them with noise."

Xigar snorted, rolling his eye and dismissing his gun. "Yes, _mother._ You just don't want to deal with the mess. And I'm pretty sure that ship has long since sailed. Did you _hear_ XI?" He chuckled suddenly. "Loud enough to wake the dead, right?"

The butterflies drifted away from the shack. Noisy little bastards. He wanted to crush every one of them. Take them in his hands and squeeze until they stopped ringing, until their glowing little bug guts squished out onto his gloves. They sailed over the roof and came to a stop at the side of the house.

"I guess we're supposed to follow them, then?" the Freeshooter muttered.

"I suppose so."

"Hoo-fuckin'-rah."

* * *

><p>Masumi.<p>

Masumi was _alive_.

These thoughts echoed in Miyako's mind as she considered the door before her, nervously inserting Akane's key into the lock. She crossed her fingers. This was the third door she had tried. It turned without resistance. She pulled the door open with a relieved sigh, wincing at the shrieks of the rusted hinges. She stepped inside, closing it behind her. The camera strap felt heavy around her neck. Her ankle no longer ached.

It was dark inside the Kiryu house, but not pitch-black. There was a lit candle on the wall, illuminating a staircase to the second floor. Moonlight drifted in from a window far above her head.

Miyako lifted the front of her shirt over her nose as a sneeze tickled at her sinuses. It was so dusty in here. She flicked on her flashlight, considering her path. There was a closed door just to her left, a tiny storeroom just to her right. Finding nothing but old kimono in the latter, she went to the door, not quite ready to brave the stairs.

In the room sat only an old projector, a reel of film still sitting inside it. There was a screen hanging on the wall before it, perfectly intact. There was a door behind the projector. Miyako crossed to it and tried the knob. Locked. She tried to use the key to no effect.

Suddenly the door behind her slammed shut, nearly giving her a heart attack. Panicking, she ran over to it. It was sealed. The knob refused to turn. Gritting her teeth, she threw herself against it with a shout. It refused to budge.

This couldn't have been happening. How could a door just slam shut like that? She took several steps back until her back hit the screen. She placed her hand over her mouth, tears of frustration beginning to spill.

The was a pop and a click from the projector. Miyako stared, frozen. It couldn't possibly still wor-

It did. It turned on, blinding her. She darted over to its side, staring transfixed up at the screen.

There was black and white footage of a rectangular hole carved into the earth. It was impossible to tell how large it was. There were grainy shots of caves, old ropes, lit candles. It was all soundless.

_Well of course it's soundless_, she thought, chiding herself. _It's such an old projector._

The film continued. More shots of caves and candles, of little significance without context.

Had... had someone intended for her to see this? The thought sent a chill up her spine. She looked around, hugging herself, the room suddenly feeling colder.

The caves went out of focus, the screen slowly turning white. The footage began to change. It was outside now, in the middle of the day. Everything was sepia-toned. There was a shot of the forest. She recognized the Shinto gate in the center of the shot. It was the same one that marked the entrance to the village.

She wondered how long had it been since she passed through it.

Miyako heard footsteps, seemingly coming from the screen. The point of view shifted, now lower to the ground. A pair of legs in muddy pants moved into the shot. The camera slowly panned out to reveal their owner.

It was that Amano boy. A few years older and in an entirely different outfit, but definitely him. He even had the braid. But he looked different. Somehow more... _human_. He peered around nervously, as if unsure where he was. His mouth opened, and she noted that he had a normal amount of teeth. He said something in a language she didn't recognize. His tone implied that it was a question. It didn't sound like English, and it definitely wasn't Japanese.

The scene changed. He was now kneeling on the ground in a white kimono. He looked a little older. There were dark bags under his eyes. Someone stepped up behind him, their head cut off by their height and the slanted angle. They lifted up his braid until it was out of the shot. She heard an odd sound, almost like scissors on cloth. His hair fell against his neck, now much shorter. He frowned sadly, bowing his head.

The screen went blank once more, little black lines scattering across it as the film continued to roll.

"_I'm so sorry._" It was a woman's voice, speaking solemnly in Japanese. "_I only did this because I loved you. I never meant for this to happen. I'm so sorry._" Her voice degenerated into muffled sobs, slowly fading out.

Onscreen, there were two people kneeling on an altar in identical white kimono, their backs turned. It was impossible to tell their gender from this angle. One turned their head. It was Amano again, looking rather terrified. The other person shifted slightly, face still hidden. They gently prodded him with their elbow, causing him to look back in front of him.

The picture flickered. It appeared to be the same scene from a different angle, now slanted slightly above their heads, their faces still hidden. A middle-aged man in an odd hat stood before them, holding a bowl filled with some viscous substance. He said something unintelligible, resting a hand on Amano's head. He pressed down gently, slowly pouring the substance onto the boy's head. He opened his mouth. The picture froze.

A slow chant, presumably from the man, came from the screen. "_From tragedy comes hope. From darkness comes light. From spilled blood comes change._" There was a pause."_Bless these two, our humble saviors. May they find success in their journey. May they find peace in the darkest of times._"

The picture righted itself. The middle-aged man's mouth moved silently, matching the chant. He moved to the other person kneeling before him and poured from the bowl, his mouth going still only after it was empty.

Amano turned his head to look at the person at his side. The angle changed. His face suddenly took up the entirety of the screen. There was indescribable sadness in his eyes.

"_Why do you obey them?_" he pleaded in Japanese, his voice independent of the footage. "_We can run, can't we?_"

The screen abruptly went red. There was a loud, sickening crunch. A boy's bloodcurdling scream.

"_No,_" a boy said slowly. It sounded like Amano. "_No! Please, no!_"

The scene changed, and Miyako had to look away from the sight. It was Amano again, lying flat on his back on a tatami mat. His legs were bare and in splints. They were riddled with bruises and cuts. Utterly shattered.

"_Please_," he said softly. "_Don't look at me like that. I can't feel anything, anyway. Nothing hurts. It was just an accident. It wasn't your fault._" The camera zoomed out to show another boy that looked just like him, kneeling at his side. Twins? Wait. Then was _that_ Amano? Who was the one in splints?

"_... Are you thirsty?_" the kneeling boy asked after a lengthy silence. "_Do you want anything to eat?_"

"_Just let me sleep,_" the boy in splints said quietly.

The kneeling boy's head sagged. "... _Okay._"

The scene faded to black. That same voice went on. "_I'm sorry, but... for the village._" Miyako wasn't sure which boy it was, but he sounded utterly heartbroken.

There was a flash of that same rectangular pit from before. The footage went harsh and grainy, returning to black and white. It showed one of the boys from before, from the waist up. He was wearing a bright red kimono that was the same exact color of the Crimson Butterflies. It even seemed to glow. It was the only source of color onscreen.

The boy looked to his side, to something offscreen. He held out his hand as a soft ringing filled the room. A Crimson Butterfly came into the shot, indeed the same shade of the kimono, and the footage suddenly began to move in slow motion. The Butterfly came to rest on his fingers. There was a chugging noise from the projector, catching Miyako off guard. The picture froze.

Miyako stood there, waiting for the scene to change. She shivered. The cold was unbearable now. Over a minute passed. It was just the boy looking up at the Butterfly, expressionless.

The boy's voice from before suddenly filled the room. It was quiet, said in a pleading tone, but it still made her jump. It faded in and out.

"-_ill you let me live agai_-? -_ill you let me wa_-_gain_-?"

The image remained on the screen, that peaceful ringing humming pleasantly in her ears. Miyako furrowed her brow. … Was the Butterfly _moving_?

She stepped towards the screen, shivering from the cold, lifting her hand to touch it. She was about halfway there when she noticed a shadow. It was fairly large, obscuring most of the boy's body.

And it wasn't hers.

Miyako spun on her heels, nearly crashing to the floor, her heart hammering in her chest.

She screamed.

There was a woman standing in front of the projector's lens. She was ethereally pale and dressed like a corpse. Her feet were invisible.

Her neck was broken. Her head dangled limply over her right shoulder.

She smiled grotesquely, her dead eyes following Miyako's every move, lifting her arms and taking her first slow step towards her.

* * *

><p>"Man, what a dump," Xigbar said.<p>

Standing beside him in the doorway-

(-no, that wasn't right, it was probably _once_ a doorway that had long since collapsed to the point that it was now nothing more than a rough-edged hole in the wall-)

-Vexen concurred, albeit not in such crude terms.

The house had long since fallen into disrepair. A staircase led up to an unseen second floor, but there was no possibility of him ever using it. Fallen beams and shattered household items littered the floor, caked in dust. It smelled overwhelmingly of mildew. The floorboards creaked ominously beneath his feet. Unusual, considering how solid the other house had been.

The Butterfly drifted past them, going into the center of the room.

"Really, bug?" Xigbar asked flatly. "You want us to go _in_?"

They searched the room cautiously. Vexen didn't trust the floorboards or even the roof. The house looked as if it could cave in at any moment.

There was a desk to his right, fairly close to the floor. One drawer was still open, overflowing with papers. He went over to it, bending and flipping idly through the stack. He couldn't read most of them, but he found a few in General. They were cutouts of newspapers, barely decipherable in their age. There was something about a neighboring village called Hanuda, another about a village named Hinamizawa. Yet another another about a village in some Aomori prefecture called Sugisawa that had apparently disappeared. The dates printed in the corners indicated that they were indeed very old. He skimmed them, finding nothing useful. He sniffed contemptuously, hardly able to stand the smell in here.

"Hey, Vex. Check this out."

Xigbar's voice drifted in from around the staircase, out of his sight. Vexen went over to him, turning the corner.

… Here was an odd sight.

"Freaky, isn't it?" Xigbar said.

It was a doll crafted in the likeness of a child, created to be life-sized. It was held up by a pole. It had no legs. Its face was blank and its arms dangled limply at its sides. It was clad in a worn, light-brown robe and appeared to be wearing a short wig fashioned from horse hair.

A note at its base caught Vexen's attention. That same indecipherable language was printed across it, long since faded. Below that, hastily scribbled was another note in General. Curious, he pulled off his glove and pressed the pad of his thumb against it. It was still wet.

_Provide proof of my existence. Return to me what is mine and you shall have the answers._

"Wonder who wrote it?" Xigbar asked no one in particular. "Think this is what the bug led us in here for?"

"It appears so," Vexen said distractedly, studying the note more closely. There was a small arrow pointing to the right at the end of the message. He turned in that direction to face a wall, noticing a small, lumpy shape in the shadows on the floor. He stooped forward, picking it up.

It was a wooden leg, fixed with ball joints to bend realistically. Judging by the shape of the foot, it was a left leg. He turned back to the doll, lifting up the robe. As expected, there was a small indentation below each hip. He pushed the leg in. It clicked into place.

They stood staring at it for a long time.

"Great. A fetch quest. Just what I needed after all the shit I've been through." Xigbar took a step back. "You goin' to stare at that thing all day, or are we goin' to keep moving?"

Vexen stepped back without a response, turning the corner with him.

They both froze.

There was a person at the desk, transparent and cast in a glowing white light. It was a young man with short hair. He showed no sign of noticing them. He scribbled something down on a piece of paper, scratching at his trimmed beard. He lifted his head at the sound of approaching footsteps, looking out through the entryway.

Two small children climbed into the house. One was a young boy, about five or six years old. Vexen looked to the other one only to make a choked sound.

It was the girl from the river. He had only seen a glimpse of her before he'd fallen, but he was certain of it.

The girl said something in a language he couldn't understand, leaping forward with a smile on her face to tug playfully at the man's beard. He pulled her hand away, slowly smiling back.

"Because I want to," the man said in General, smile now a full beam. He turned back to the desk. "And because it's comfortable."

"Where's Daddy?" the little boy asked, staring at the little girl with irritation as she bounced back to him.

"With your grandmother, I'm sure. He'll be back soon. Hang on. I'll be done in a moment."

The scene faded as he turned back to the desk, leaving the room silent. Xigbar surveyed the room with suspicion.

"Well, nothing's attacking us, so..."

"... A view into the past, perhaps?" Vexen suggested. Why not? It made about as much sense as everything else in this damned place.

"Sure. Let's go with that."

There was something shining on the floor, where the man had been sitting. Vexen was certain that it hadn't been there before. He walked towards it, bending to pick it up.

The creaking of the floorboards served as his only warning. The ground beneath him suddenly caved and he went tumbling into darkness, screaming all the way.

* * *

><p>Miyako flew back, narrowly avoiding the woman's icy grasp. Cold seemed to emanate from her very form. She ran for the door, gasping hysterically. It was still locked. She cursed loudly, throwing her body against it with enough force to bruise. It didn't even budge.<p>

"_Help... me_," the woman whispered behind her. "_It hurts._" Miyako swore she felt her breath on the back of her neck. She whimpered, wheeling back across the room to the other door. It was locked, too.

"_You... too?_" the woman said, face breaking apart with a smile as she released a soft giggle. Her dead eyes went alight with malicious glee.

Miyako began to cry. She lifted her hands unconsciously, pressing them together and clutching at nothing. They bumped roughly against-

-the camera.

_The camera._

Miyako lifted it from her chest, recalling Akane's words. It hadn't made sense to her then, _still _hadn't, but she had been too overjoyed by the news of Masumi's survival to question it. She quickly lifted it to her eye, willing to try anything at this point.

The woman appeared closer through the lens, amplifying her heartbeat. The camera made a soft whir as it focused. Her fingers fumbled for a button, a switch, _something_-!

Her pointer finger pressed down on a button just beside the viewfinder. The whir quickened and the room was filled with blinding white light. The image of the woman with the broken neck stayed for a moment. Miyako heard an agonized shriek, pulling away from the camera to see that she had stumbled backwards.

Her pulse quickened, not with fear but with excitement.

She pulled the camera back, eager to take another shot. She pressed the button to no effect. Bewildered, she pulled away from it again.

The woman recovered quickly. Her jaw dropped in a silent scream as she advanced.

There was another whir, louder this time. Desperate, Miyako adjusted the camera and pressed the button again.

Another flash of white light. The woman groaned pitifully, stumbling back before falling to her knees. She disappeared with a final pathetic whimper.

The room grew warmer instantly. Miyako shivered anyway, her knees weak. She fell back against the wall, collapsing slowly.

She heard a click, from the direction of the door in front of her. Pulling herself up, she crossed to it.

The knob turned in her hand. She almost fainted with relief.

Miyako turned to cast a final look over the room. The projector continued to whir. The image of the boy and the butterfly still flickered on the screen.

She rushed out without a second thought, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

><p><strong>And another chapter draws to a close. Only took me eight chapters to get to a proper ghost battle. ;D Man, you would not BELIEVE how long I've been waiting to write that projector scene. How long has it been, two years now? Oy.<strong>

**Super special awesome thanks to TheRedKunoichi for going over the opening flashback. She is awesome and you should totally drop by her page. :D**

**As always, I greatly appreciate feedback. Thanks for reading!  
><strong>


	9. Chapter 8

AN: Sorry about the delay. Murphy's Law was in full effect between updates. Thanks to The Red Kunoichi for allowing me to bounce ideas off of her.

Thanks to all who read or favorite, and special thanks to those who review. I enjoy feedback and would love to hear what you think. Constructive criticism would really be appreciated. :]

* * *

><p>For the first time in both of his lives, Lexaeus found that he couldn't trust the earth.<p>

In any other world, it would be both solid and moving; unyielding and yet constantly in motion. But not here. Earthquakes materialized with little to no warning from soil as still as the surface of an undisturbed pond. There was no sound, no telltale dull vibrating from the shifting tectonic plates. The quakes came and went like lightning strikes, here and gone again without any semblance of pattern or reason.

People rarely gave much thought to what was occurring beneath their very feet. The earth, the planet as a whole, was constantly moving and shifting and rolling beneath the surface, boiling up from the molten center when conditions were just right and adding a fresh layer to the top; burying the scars and the blemishes the surface had endured over the years. Continents drifted and seas widened, just as the space between worlds had so long ago; just as it continued to do. To most people, the other elements were formidable forces against a backdrop of unmoving brown. Fire could burn, water could drown, wind could crush and erode.

But the earth would _always_ be there, even after everything else was gone. Still and unmoving and _alive._

It was for this very reason that Lexaeus grew to almost, _almost_, fear the earth of Minakami. It was, for lack of a better term, _dead._ There was no movement here, no rolling or shifting or _life_. It was as if it had been frozen, trapped forever in a timeless void.

And then, like the ghost of a pulse from a man that has been without one for so long, the earthquakes would appear. It was as if the world was releasing its dying breath, its final gasp for air before it sank back into the ether.

And Lexaeus sank with it.

When he came to after several minutes of drifting in and out of a dark, painful haze, his mind was utter chaos. He felt heat against his face, saw glowing orange embers behind his eyelids, heard Axel shouting desperate obscenities in his ears until they rang. He felt vibrations in the dead earth, a _pulse_, and for a moment he thought it to be the start of yet another earthquake.

Lexaeus clenched his jaw, and went completely still.

Nothing happened. At least, not as he had expected it to.

The earth was still and dead. He felt, rather than heard, Axel jump to his feet, felt the heat on his face increase in its intensity until it practically singed him.

And he felt another presence.

Lexaeus thought of the tall woman with the knife, and attacked.

There was a shout of surprise, the voice too deep for Axel. Lexaeus slowly pulled himself up, felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. It was an odd sensation, to be sure, at least for one without a heart. He peeled his eyelids back with effort, blinking sluggishly as his eyes adjusted to the alternating flares of orange flame and absolute darkness. It left white spots in his vision.

There was another man among them, one he did not recognize. The man was buried to his calves in solid rock, and in his confusion Lexaeus wondered if that had been by _his_ hand. He managed to get to his knees, wincing as he balanced himself on the arm that was not broken. He stared at the man, his brain not quite capable of processing what was going on around him in its current state. To see another living person here was shocking enough.

The man was of average height. Ragged and dirty and unshaven. Not particularly muscular. He had a desperate, half-mad look in his eyes, but he didn't appear particularly threatening.

Lexaeus somehow got to his feet, not willing to take a chance. Aeleus had thought the same about Isa, about Lea, and yet they had both gone on to prove that he had underestimated them. The proof was standing right next to him, and was probably the only reason he was still alive.

The man had thrown up his hands in a gesture of surrender, his eyes wide with terror. He began speaking rapidly in a language the Silent Hero couldn't understand. Lexaeus looked to Axel, who appeared to be just as confused as he felt.

There was a rustling of cloth. They turned in unison to see the man slowly shrugging off a backpack. Axel raised a chakram. The man froze, slowly shaking his head. He began speaking in a calm, level voice, the fear in his eyes betraying his true emotions as he unshouldered the pack with one final push. It fell behind him with a muffled crash.

Axel looked to Lexaeus, who nodded as he held up his tomahawk. The man's eyes widened even further as he focussed on it, standing entirely still as Axel scooped up the backpack and retreated to his original spot. The man looked to Axel, and Lexaeus followed.

Axel pulled it open roughly, scattering sheets of paper across the floor. He tossed out a notebook, an old wallet, a large water bottle and food wrappers. The notebook landed by the Silent Hero's feet, several loose pages slipping out of it. There was a splash of color amidst the white. He glanced over it in the dark. It was a creased and faded photograph of a smiling young woman.

"Aha!" Axel exclaimed in the dark. Lexaeus looked up just in time to see him drop the backpack and pry open the white metal box in his hands. Even in the dark the large red cross on its lid was prominent. "He's barely touched it," Axel said. "Looks like he just went for the bandages."

"Keep it," Lexaeus said.

"No duh. I was just going to throw it out until you went and changed my mind." Lexaeus reached out for it, only for Axel to back away. "No way, jack," he said roughly. "I'd rather keep it on me, thanks."

Lexaeus scowled, but stepped back. He was too tired, too hurt for an argument. And honestly, he really should have known better. Expecting Axel to help him for any reason other than self-preservation was absolute foolishness.

"Here you go, buddy," Axel said to the man, sliding the pack back to him with his foot. "Thanks for everything."

The man didn't respond at first, slowly dropping to his knees and, almost meekly, reaching out for it. He pulled it up and pressed it against his chest, never once looking up from the ground. Lexaeus would have pitied him, if he were capable. The man sat there for several long seconds, frozen, unmoving, his face hidden in shadow. It was deafeningly quiet.

"Let's go," Axel said, walking past him. Lexaeus stared a moment longer before trailing after him. He stopped suddenly as he felt something crunch underfoot. He looked down. There was a tiny black box hidden in the shadow of his boot. Velvet, by the looks of it. His weight had put a slight dent in it.

The man suddenly came alive with a desperate shriek. He lurched forward, grabbing the box and scurrying back. He clumsily pried it open, pulling out a tiny silver ring. Once it was in his hands, he let out a shuddering breath, nearly collapsing with relief.

Axel was the one to take the lead, stepping over the man without so much as a glance in his direction. Lexaeus wasn't so quick to follow. He lowered himself to one knee and gathered up the notebook and its scattered pages, taking the photograph of the smiling woman and setting it gently under the cover.

There was no sense in taking this man with them. He was of no use to them. He was still in possession of his heart, but it would not stay that way for long. Not with all of this Darkness. Even if he was to somehow remain intact, hunger or thirst would claim him soon enough. He would be a burden. Lexaeus knew that. Aeleus would have known that.

But Lexaeus hadn't forgotten what it had been like to have a heart. He never had.

Over the past several years, he had watched in silence as his friends and colleagues changed around him. The changes were subtle at first, such as how they rarely made eye contact with one another or hardly ever seemed to speak past small talk. Then Xigbar began to willingly place himself in dangerous situations to the point that it had become something of an obsession, smiling and laughing it off like he hadn't nearly lost his life each time. Vexen talked even less, shutting himself up in his lab and rarely showing anything other than annoyance or disdain for those around him. Zexion became more cold, more calculative, casting away the painful memories that had haunted Ienzo for so long without so much as a hint of struggle. Xaldin smiled more, but they were cold smiles, predatory smiles. Every word he spoke carried an underlying mock. They sparred occasionally, as their Others had many times before, but now he seemed to take pleasure in causing Lexaeus pain.

And Xemnas. Xemnas had hardly changed at all.

They could cling to their habits all they wanted, but in the end, they were nothing more than cold, amoral shells. Cold, amoral shells of cold, amoral men.

Yes, Lexaeus remembered what it had been like to have a heart. And it was clear that Axel didn't. Useless or otherwise, the man cowering at his feet, hungry and frightened and in dire need of a bath, was trapped here just as they were. In this darkness, his heart was a burden to him. Trapped in his memories, in his emotions, his light was a beacon to all that resided in this hellish place. He may as well have had a target painted on his chest. Lexaeus could almost, _almost_, pity him.

"What are you doing?" Axel snapped.

Lexaeus didn't answer. He crossed to the man, setting down the notebook in front of him. The man didn't move. Lexaeus pulled himself up.

"Let's go," he said to Axel, and didn't bother to look back.

* * *

><p>"<em>You aren't here," his father wheezed.<em>

"_I'm surprised you can still talk," Masumi said._

"_Get out." Makimura Akito coughed weakly, flinging bloodied spit across his hollow, deflated chest. His bones seemed to rattle beneath his ashen, wrinkled skin. "Get out. You won't be here when I wake up." His eyes gradually sank shut._

_Masumi grabbed the chair beside the bed, purposely letting it screech against the floor. He pounded his fist on the mattress. What was left of his father bounced with it. "Wake up, old man. I didn't come all this way to watch you sleep."_

_Akito shifted, slowly pulling back his eyelids. "You aren't here," he repeated stupidly._

_Masumi leaned forward, clasping his hands. There was a creaking just outside the door. Aiko had to have been listening in. Let her. It wasn't like he cared about what she thought of him.  
>"I'm going to make this quick: I'm coming to say goodbye. I'm never seeing you again."<em>

_The old man laughed. It was hollow, wet. "The first good thing you've done for me."_

"_I'm not done." He reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out the black velveteen box. He paused to give Akito a good, long look at it. He opened it and pulled out the ring. It was cool in his palm. Silver, with a diamond shard set on top. Not as nice as he thought she deserved, but it was all he could afford. "I'm marrying Miyako," he said. "We're moving, as far as we can go."_

"_As far as you can go away from me?" Akito laughed again, the shaking in his body threatening to tear him apart. "You may actually have a brain cell or two. If I weren't so old, I would be up teaching you a lesson in obedience right now."_

"_But you can't." Masumi rose from the chair, going to the door and pulling it open. Indeed, Aiko was standing just outside the threshold. "And I'm sure it's _killing_ you inside."_

"_She doesn't love you, son," Akito shot back. "The girl is crazy and you know it."_

"_Goodbye, Dad."_

* * *

><p>"And thanks for nothing," Masumi whispered.<p>

* * *

><p>"<em>Miyako," he said purposefully, "it's time for me to go." He managed a smile, prodding her shoulder teasingly. "You'll come rescue me if the ghosts get me, right?"<em>

* * *

><p>Masumi scooped up his belongings and shot to his feet. He wasn't sure how long he walked. But it couldn't have been that long before he finally caught sight of Rock Man and his friend.<p>

"I'm going with you," he said with a scowl, not caring that they couldn't understand him. He pulled out his notebook, flipping through it -

- _Miyako had such a _beautiful _smile _-

until he found his maps. They were crude, but they would work. The caverns twisted and weaved without any semblance of pattern, stretching across pages and pages of wrinkled note and graph paper. He went to Rock Man. The guy seemed more sensible than the other one. He would know that they couldn't read the writing on the pages. He would know that Masumi had been here far longer than they had, just going on appearances alone.

Besides, they were going the wrong way.

"I'm going with you," he repeated sternly.

They seemed to understand that well enough.

* * *

><p>Vexen clenched his eyes with a groan as dust settled around him. He was vaguely aware of something pressing painfully against his back, could hear the faint trickling of water. When he finally opened his eyes, Xigbar was kneeling immediately over him.<p>

"Took quite a tumble there," Xigbar said, holding out his hand. Vexen took it, pulling himself to his feet and dusting himself off. The Freeshooter took Vexen's head in his hands and turned it, casually inspecting it. "Learning all about head injuries these past few days, aren't ya?"

"This whole place is falling apart," Vexen grumbled, pulling away and massaging his forehead.

"Yeah, and I'm sure it had nothing to do with you deciding to go after the first shiny thing you saw. How stupid was _that?_" He patted him roughly on the back, throwing his arm across his shoulders. "But whatever. Live and learn."

Vexen ignored him, looking up despite the aching in his body. There was a sizeable hole in the building's floor approximately five feet above him, jagged around the edges with splintered floorboards. The dull moonlight hurt his eyes. He shrugged Xigbar off and searched around for his bag, finding it half-concealed beneath a board. He pulled out his flashlight and switched it on.

"... And we landed in a dungeon. Goodie." Xigbar summoned his weapons as a precaution and laid them against his sides.

Xigbar was correct, for once. Across from them sat what was unmistakably a prison cell, albeit a rather bare one. There was small hole in the ground and a molded, soiled pile of what had to have once been cloth. The bars themselves were in advanced stages of rusting, riddled with holes. It was unbearably damp and rather unpleasant-smelling. Vexen covered his nose unconsciously.

It was the same all around them save for one wall. Amidst twenty cells - he'd counted without thinking - there were two stone staircases. One went up, leading to a rotting wooden door. One went very far down, into complete darkness.

A soft ringing filled the room. Vexen hadn't quite grown used to it, doubted he ever would, but it no longer made him jerk in surprise.

"I swear that thing wasn't there two seconds ago," Xigbar said, looking down at a Crimson Butterfly as it went to land on the ground. "I got this." Xigbar followed after it, reaching down to where it landed and sending it flying. He held something up. It was a key.

"I'm sure that finding the lock to that key will be more trouble than it's worth," Vexen said dryly.

"Better to have a key at all." Xigbar walked back to him, turning it over in his hands. It was severely rusted. It looked like it could fall apart any second.

Someone coughed behind them, from the staircase. They each turned and took a step backwards, automatically lifting their weapons as Vexen shone the light forward. There was a man on the descending stairs, an elderly, emaciated man, cast in the same ethereal light that had shone over the young man with the beard. He was hunkered down in a bowed kneel. When he turned to face them, they saw that his eyes were covered in tattered, bloody bandages. He abruptly faded away.

"... Not going that way," Xigbar said after a moment.

A sudden creaking above them stole their collective attention. They looked up.

The child from before stared down at them through the hole without a word, without any expression to speak of. His knife glinted in the moonlight as he tapped it rhythmically against his wrist. It was still stained with Marluxia's blood. Vexen squinted. It seemed unusually bright. He quickly realized with distant fascination that moonlight was passing directly through the boy's body. After several long seconds, the child's mouth stretched in a toothy smile. He acknowledged them with a nod, his eyes wide and bright with youthful mischief. He rose from his crouch and casually turned away with a stretch, his footsteps creaking away long after he left their sight.

"... A-and not going _that_ way." They each turned slowly to the ascending staircase.

"It seems we've exhausted our options," Vexen said.

Xigbar took a step forward, casually batting a gun against his thigh. Any more of that and he would end up shooting himself in the leg. Not that it ever stopped him before. "Then I guess that makes things easier for us, huh?"

Vexen trailed after him, lowering the flashlight to his hip. As the beam moved, he saw something sparkle in the dark, continuing to do so even after the beam passed over it. Xigbar followed his gaze, going over to pick it up without a word.

"... A rock." Xigbar stared at it a moment longer before tossing it high into the air and catching it. "Nah, a _pebble_. I _guess_ it's a keeper. I've picked up weirder stuff on missions." He went back to the door and opened it. It creaked and shrieked as he pulled it towards his body. "Heavier than it looks," Xigbar said with a grunt. He turned to Vexen. "You coming, or am I going to have to drag you out by your pigtails?"

* * *

><p>The air felt... damp.<p>

Miyako paused, the boards groaning softly beneath her feet as she closed the door behind her. Her fingers brushed over the camera as she shone the flashlight forward. The further she went into the Kiryu house it seemed, the more decayed and decrepit it became.

Rotted paper doors surrounded her, most left half-open, offering glances into rooms long since abandoned. A futon here, a table there. Bedrooms, apparently. They smelled overwhelmingly of mildew. Clenching her hands, Miyako stepped forward.

"_Kaede..._"

Miyako froze completely, tightening her grip on the flashlight until the plastic creaked. She clenched her lips until she was sure they were bloodless. It was a man's hoarse whisper, drifting through the door immediately to her left.

"_Kaede..._"

Warmth emanated from the door, or at least whatever was behind it. Miyako's eyes fluttered closed and she took a deep breath. It was strangely comforting. She dared even say it felt nice. She wanted more of it. No matter what on the other side of that door, she wanted the warmth that came with it. She couldn't seem to control her body. Her mind was strangely at peace as she slid the door open. Her hands didn't even go to the camera.

The room was almost pitch black save the light from a small candle against the far wall, but even then she could tell that it wasn't very big. A man was huddled in the corner, cast in an icy blue light. He was staring directly at her with wide, clear gray eyes, but it didn't seem that he was looking at anything in particular. She felt no fear, only a bizarre, otherwordly calmness. He may as well have been staring a thousand yards behind her. His dark, dark hair was riddled with gray strands, his eyes undercut by black, sagging semicircles. His worn kimono was straight out of another time.

"_Kaede..._" His trembling lips broke apart and he slowly lowered his gaze to the bundle of cloth in his arms. He pulled up one of his hands and brushed a finger against the cloth, shifting it gently in the crook of his elbow. A tiny hand shot up from the bundle to wrap around his finger, and only then did Miyako realize that he was holding a baby. The man chuckled breathlessly, his eyes lighting up momentarily.

"I can't let you face what I have," he said, lifting his head to stare blankly at the wall. "This ritual... can only destroy." He looked back down to the child, smiling tenderly. Tears began to collect in his eyes. His voice cracked as he began to laugh bitterly. "I suppose your name suits you, eh, little one? How cruel we were to choose it. You should have been named after your father."

The camera suddenly began to thrum against her chest. Miyako pulled it up with a frown, noticing that the characters painted around the lens were beginning to glow a cold blue. She slowly brought the viewfinder up to her eye. Through it she could see that the man was still sitting in the corner, carefully stroking the unseen child in what seemed to be a continuous loop of movement. She pressed down on the button. White light filled the room, burning spots onto her vision. Directly below the frozen image of the man, she could just barely make out words:

_Weeping Man_

The image faded, the camera whirred, and Miyako immediately collapsed. It was as if all of the energy and warmth had been sucked from her body the moment the man disappeared. She shuffled backwards, suddenly wanting to get as far away from the room as possible. Even after hitting a wall a few meters away, she still didn't feel entirely safe. She sat there for several excruciating seconds, gulping down air as she tried to catch her breath. She glared down at the camera, turning it rapidly in her hands.

Just what the hell _was_ this thing?

"_Daddy! You're back!_"

Miyako jerked, her heart leaping in her chest. This was a child's voice, a high-pitched screech of delight. She could hear rapid footsteps on the floorboards.

"_Daddy, Daddy!_"

There, another voice, this time from the opposite direction. It sounded almost identical. Miyako pushed herself to her feet, lifting the camera halfway. She slowly stumbled forward, searching the room through the viewfinder.

A person immediately came into focus just before her, sending her flying backwards in surprise. They were turned with their side facing her, bent halfway to the floor, holding their arms out expectantly. It took Miyako a moment to realize that it was the same man, looking at at least ten years younger. He was grinning ear-to-ear as a little girl, perhaps around five years old, passed directly through a paper door and crashed into his arms, throwing her arms around his neck and giggling ecstatically. Another little girl, a twin of the first, came darting from the same direction, doing the same. He lifted them both up with a laugh, revealing that he wasn't very tall at all. Rather short, in fact.

"Alright, alright," he said, out of breath. "Your old father has to put you down, now. You'll throw out his back." He set them each down, sighing as they gave protesting whines. "Be good, you two," he said, his face stretching with a mischievous smile as he tapped the nose of the first girl with his forefinger, "or you won't get to see your _gifts._"

The girls began to chatter excitedly, rushing forward to tug at his sleeves. He took a step back, turning away from Miyako to grab a suitcase she hadn't noticed before. He snapped it open and pulled out a wooden box, pulling off the lid and tearing away some old newspaper. From that he pulled a bright yellow box with a crank on its side, setting it in the hands of the second girl. He dropped to one knee, eye-to-eye with her as he set her hand on the crank.

"This here," he said, his smile widening, "is a _magic_ box. You just rotate this crank-" He placed his hand over hers and began to turn it. The box began to play a familiar tune. _Pop Goes the Weasel_, Miyako thought it was called. The little girl's eyes lit up as she began to turn it on her own. "-and..." He waited, his smile growing larger and larger as the song neared the end. Within seconds, a brightly-colored clown doll burst from the box. The girl dropped it with a shriek, running to hide behind her sister. Expecting this, the man caught it before it hit the ground. He began cackling uproariously, reaching out to hug her tightly. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist!"

The other sister took it from his hands with a curious look, turning it over and lifting the lid to inspect it. She hadn't even flinched. She fiddled with it for a moment, a small smile coming to her face as she searched every inch of it.

"That's my girl," the man said, patting her shoulder. "Tough as nails and eager to learn, just like her old man."

The other little girl cautiously made her way towards it, frowning. "It's _ugly_. Who would play with something like _that?_"

"Crazy people!" the man said brightly. "Children from the Garden aren't like the children here. They're fearless, eager for excitement. Why, just yesterday your old father saw a group of boys trying to jump across one of the canyons in a wheelbarrow."

The girl's eyes widened in surprise. "Did... did they get hurt?" she asked meekly.

"You betcha," he said cheerily. "Splattered all over the place, like jam! They had to scrape them up with shovels and-!"

The door behind him slid open. A woman stepped through, givng the man a meaningful glare as he turned to face her.

"_Kana!_" the man said loudly, almost theatrically, jumping up and throwing his arms around a woman as she entered the room, forcing her face into his shoulder. It was almost amusing, considering she was clearly taller than he was. "I was just telling them that-"

"I _heard_," she said forcefully, pushing away with a half-frown. "_You_ weren't the one that had to deal with their nightmares while you were gone."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry."

"As you should be," she said, pushing further away from him. "Chitose said supper is ready."

"... Give me a moment," he said, his voice suddenly growing quiet. "I want to speak with Akane."

The woman nodded immediately in understanding, holding her hand out to one of the girls. "Come along, Azami. Let's give them some privacy." The girl went to her, taking her hand and looking with concern to her sister. They left the room, the door clicking behind them. The man stood in contemplative silence, head cocked as he listened for their fading footsteps.

"Akane," he said slowly, going to the girl and dropping to one knee before her. She hugged the Jack-in-the-Box to her chest, staring blankly down at her feet. "What did Mr. Kurosawa tell you, Akane?"

She said nothing, refused to as she stared down at the floor. He slowly moved forward, drawing her into a tight hug and lifting her up. She dropped the toy and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder.

And as he turned to reach down for the suitcase with her still in his arms, Akane's eyes shot open. The image stilled as her cold gaze fell on Miyako.

Miyako froze.

There was so much sadness, so much _hatred_ in that stare. Her eyes were no longer dark, now a cold, lifeless yellow. Miyako couldn't move. All that hatred, all that _anger_, paralyzed her. Her entire body broke out in gooseflesh as she she regained the feeling in her hands. Never once breaking the gaze, Miyako slowly reached for her camera.

"_Don't._"

Miyako gasped quietly, her hand stilling seemingly of its own accord. It was the little girl's voice, _Akane's_ voice, echoing in her ears. It was harsh, slightly deeper than before, cold and lifeless and-

-Akane.

_Akane._

"Are," Miyako choked out, her shaking voice sounding foreign to her. It was a fairly common name, but the resemblance was almost uncanny. "Are you-?"

"_Why?_"

Miyako immediately closed her mouth, her breath forcing its way out of her in trembling, visible puffs of air. Her legs began to shake as cold overtook her.

Akane looked down to the floor, her eyes darkening to their natural color. She clenched them shut and pressed further into her father's shoulder as her tiny body began to shake with sobs. "_Why did it have to be like this?_"

It was too much. The cold, the hurt, the anger. It was just too much to handle. She felt dizzy, incredibly nauseous. Miyako ducked into a room with a tremulous gasp and collapsed to her knees, choking back vomit as she struggled to regain her breath.

She heard a strained sigh just before her, and she knew that she wasn't alone. Miyako slowly lifted her head, willing herself not to breathe.

There was a boy - a little boy, eight years old at the most - huddled in the corner, behind a table. He was shivering, staring intently across the room as he hugged his knees to his chest, his eyes stretched wide with fear. He whispered rapidly under his breath, and Miyako's blood ran cold.

Something else was in the room. She could sense it.

Miyako jumped to her feet, torn between fleeing the room to fall directly back into Akane's wrathful gaze, and remaining in the room with whatever the boy was afraid of.

She heard the door snap shut behind her, and knew that her choice had been made for her.

A little girl ran through her, filling her body with an unbearable cold. She reached out for the wall to stabilize herself, too numb to feel any real fear or surprise. The girl spun on her heels, searching the room with a smile on her face, and Miyako gave a small gasp.

It was Akane - a few years older, around the same age as the boy, but definitely her.

"_Found _you." Akane exclaimed, going to the boy and grabbing his shoulder with a triumphant grin. "C'mon. Let's go find Azami!"

The boy jerked at her touch, looking up at her as if woken from a dream. He blinked, looking back to the wall before clenching his eyes shut.

"... Amaru?" Akane asked. "Amaru, are you okay?"

_'Amaru...?'_ Miyako repeated in her mind. She squinted, taking a closer look at the boy. Yes... he _did_ look like the pink-haired man. But... his hair was black, short, and even from this distance she could tell that his eyes were lighter, maybe pale blue or gray. He stared down at his feet, slowly pulling in a breath.

"Akane?" he whispered, taking her hand. For the first time Miyako noticed that his skin was significantly darker than Akane's. He looked up at her with fear in his eyes. "Akane, can you keep a secret?"

The pair faded, and the camera began to thrum once more. Miyako slowly pulled it up, panning it across the room until the blue characters around the lens grew brightest. Drawing in a breath, Miyako snapped a picture.

Nothing showed up, at first. It took a moment for a human form to develop. It was an older woman, lying still on her side with no expression. Her kimono had fallen open, one breast exposed. Her eyes were rolled up slightly into her skull. Below this, Miyako could just barely make out:

_Silent Agony _

Miyako closed her eyes, her heart pounding in her chest. She didn't care if this thing was her only weapon. These visions... they seemed to be triggered by the presence of the camera. If it meant being free of them, she would gladly throw it away. She had survived long enough without it. She lowered it to her stomach, turning it over in her hands.

"Having fun with that, are we?"

Miyako nearly fell to the floor, catching herself on the wall and spinning around. Amano was standing directly behind her, smiling brightly and cradling something in his arms. It looked like a club.

"I must say, I didn't think Akane would be so willing to part with it."

Miyako jumped back, instinctively holding out her arms to protect herself.

Amano only laughed. "I'm hurt, Miyako. After all I've done for you, you still don't trust me."

"Please," Miyako gasped. "Please, just leave me alone."

Amano only smiled wider, taking a step forward and holding the club out. "I'm not going to hurt you, Miyako. Why would I when I need your help?" He pointed to the club with his chin, never breaking eye contact with her. "Go on, take it."

Miyako inched forward, her hands trembling. She took the club from his arms and pulled back, casting a brief glance over it. She almost dropped it when she saw that there was a foot attached to one end. It took a moment for her to realize that it was a wooden leg.

"... What do you want me to do with this?" she asked, truly taken aback.

"You'll see," he said in a sing-song tone. "Until then, I'd like for you to do me a favor." He reached out for her, touching her wrist with the icy tips of his fingers. It was gentle, a gesture that in any other situation would have been comforting "See, a long time ago, I had something _very_ important taken away from me." His expression darkened. "Something I would very much like to have back. An old witch took it and hid it somewhere. She locked it up in a long blue box and I never saw it again."

Amano looked back up at her, his sunny smile returning. "I would normally search for the box myself, but Amaru has proven that he doesn't even have to be in the village to act as a thorn in my side." He scowled. "… Besides, the witch hid it rather well."

"... How do you expect me to find it?" Miyako asked, taking a step back.

Amano gave a dismissive wave. "You can see a lot with that camera. Keep your eyes open and you should find it soon enough." He smiled. "I'll be sure you won't leave until you do."

Miyako quickly held out the camera, her blood running cold at his last sentence. "If you want it, just take it. I can't stand to be around this... _thing_."

Amano chuckled. "I wish I could, Miyako. But that camera wasn't made for someone in my... _condition_." He cocked his head, his eyes widening with mock-fear. "Besides, I can't _bear_ the thought of losing you to one of those ghouls when you already have a _perfectly_ good weapon right there in your hands. If my selfishness resulted in your death, I just might _die_."

Miyako jumped as a shadow bloomed up behind him, swallowing him up. He gave a small wave before it devoured him completely. "Remember," he said brightly just before he disappeared, "I'll be watching."

Miyako was left alone in the cold dampness. She cast a final look to where the image of Amaru had been cowering before slowly leaving the room.


End file.
